For some weeks now, the talk of the country has been centred around stories and reactions on the proposed bill insisting on placing restrictions on social media and Nigeria’s Internet space at the National Assembly. Incidentally, this social media restriction discussion is not new on the political stage.
Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi (APC, Niger) as spokesperson of the 8th Senate in 2016 had actually at the time proposed the Bill seeking for establishment of an Independent National Commission for Hate Speeches. The Bill also prescribed death sentence for any person found guilty of any form of hate speech that results in the death of another person upon conviction.
Expectedly, the bill stimulated discourse in many quarters, with most Nigeria’s, ever suspicious of the legislators, wondering whose interest Abdullahi was trying to protect. Luckily, it was thrown out of that Senate.
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For whatever reason (sure not for the general interest of Nigerians), Senator Sabi has dusted the rejected bill, presenting it once again to the 9th Senate, which incidentally has been tagged a rubber stamp of the executive. And not a few people are of the belief that it is the executive that is remotely or otherwise driving the hate speech bills.
And so the once rejected bill, in just a few weeks after its reintroduction, has already passed second reading in the Senate. The first was on Tuesday, November 5, 2019, while the second was on November 11, 2019.
It is important, however, to note that there are two bills in the upper chamber of the National Assembly that Nigerians are kicking against. They are the reintroduced Hate Speech Bill and the Social Media Bill, with the Hate Speech Bill coming in two versions – one read by the Senate and the other at the House of Representatives.
Mohammed Tahir Monguno, who represents Monguno/Marte/Nganzai Federal Constituency of Borno State, is sponsor of the “Hate Speech Prohibition Bill 2019” at the House of Representatives, initially read on July 24, 2019.
The current Hate Speech Bill, otherwise called the National Commission for the Prohibition of Hate Speeches Bill 2019, on the other hand, is sponsored by Senator Sabi Abdullahi, now Deputy Chief Whip of the Senate. It states that anyone found guilty of hate speech is liable to life imprisonment, adding that if the action leads to the death of another, the guilty party should be sentenced to death by hanging.
Following huge criticism on the Bill, however, its sponsor has removed the attached death penalty.
Specifically, the bill states that a person must not:
• Transmit a statement that is false or,
• Transmit a statement that might:
• Affect the security of any part of Nigeria.
• Affect public health, public safety, or public finance.
• Affect Nigeria’s relationship with other countries.
• Influence the outcome of an election to any office in a general election.
• Cause enmity or hatred towards a person or group of persons.
It went further to explain that anyone guilty of any of the above is liable to a fine of N300, 000 ($826), three years imprisonment, or both (for an individual), and a fine not exceeding N10 million ($27550) (for corporate organisations).
The same punishment, it indicated, applies to fake online accounts that transmit any of the stated offenses.
The argument has actually been that the moment President Muhammadu Buhari declined to sign the Digital Rights Bill on the grounds that it “covers too many technical subjects and fails to address any of them extensively” was the time for most Nigerians to be clear on what to come. In other words, the whole thing about the Hate speech Bill and Social Media Bill, as in the biblical saying, just feels like the hand of Esau but with the voice of Jacob.
Considering that the Digital Rights Bill was supposed to be one that protects the fundamental rights of Nigerians on the Internet and ensure their safety and well being, it is highly curious that a president would decline assent to it. But what do I know?
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The other sign to the impending violation of people’s right to freedom of speech and expression, which is what the Hate Speech Bills are basically all about, could also be found in a part of the president’s Independence Day speech, which seemingly foretold plans of impending Internet censorship.
Add the fact that the president had instead announced of ‘’firm and decisive action’’ against anyone found spreading hate speech and everything will begin to fall in place.
In his Independence Day speech, for instance, President Muhammadu Buhari had noted that though his administration recognises the freedom of expression of the citizens, it would resist the abuse of such rights, especially through the social media. And the people ask: What about abuse of their own rights through bad governance and fraudulent electoral process now fully endorsed, or so it seems by the government?
And while still looking for how the Hate Speech bills are coming about, also recall that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, while acting as President in August of 2016, had similarly at a function, described hate speech as specie of terrorism. Hate speech employs violence and intimidation to achieve certain political objectives, he said, stressing that offenders would be punished under the Terror Act.
On her part, wife of the president, Aisha Buhari, only recently, justified the proposal for a Hate Speech Bill, citing what obtains in communist states such as China.
“If China can control over 1.3bn people on social media, I see no reason why Nigeria cannot attempt controlling only 180m people,” she was quoted to have said the other Friday at the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs General Assembly and National Executive Council meeting held at the National Mosque, Abuja.
Her daughter, Zahra Indimi, in the same vein, called on Nigerian youth to be patient and understand the content of the social media bill before making “silly” comments and heaping blames.
For a government that blatantly disregards court rulings and pronouncements whenever and wherever it pleases, the true meaning of the word, “fair” is subject to scrutiny.
And when you cap all these with the position of minister of information and tourism, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on review of the broadcast media law, you must come to terms with the real reason, and perhaps, real sponsors of the Hate Speech Bill.
The APC-led government simply aims to implement more stringent laws regulating the media and Alhaji Mohammed insists the laws passed 27 years ago needed to be re-evaluated. He believes the new bill ‘’will address the existing lacunae in the areas of the regulation of the Internet,’’ among others.
But considering that any criticism of this administration’s inadequacies, or actions and inactions are usually labeled as hate speech, one can understand why the proposed Bill is hugely being condemned in all sectors of the society and said to be in bad faith.
As a matter of fact, most Nigerians believe that hate speech, which this government rode on to office, was mostly boosted by President Buhari’s statement at an international forum where he said it will not be possible to treat those who gave him “97 per cent vote” same way as those that gave him “five per cent.”
And as if to confirm the above statement made at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington DC few months after he was sworn in as president, appointments into key positions and handling of other national issues in the Buhari government have glaringly been lopsided.
That apart, the way and manner the federal government treated agitations by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) when compared to what obtains in the deadly attacks by Fulani herdsmen in the country easily defines bias.
And when it comes to the war against corruption, even a senator and a member of the president’s All Progressives Congress (APC) party at the time, Shehu Sani, satirically captured the president’s apparent predisposition, saying when members of the president’s circle are involved, the case is treated with some nice smelling perfume but when opposition members are involved, government deploys the use of insecticide.
In other words, apparent bias policies of the APC government among others are simply hate actions that naturally beget hate speeches! More so, there is no need wasting resources on Bills that are in conflict with existing laws, policy or case law.
What Nigeria desperately needs, instead, are laws that will entrench peace, justice and good governance; laws that will holistically address the three monsters of insecurity, corruption and impunity, currently holding the nation down.
When that is done, things like hate speeches will certainly no longer be an issue, since hate speeches hardly thrive in peaceful and just environment, where everyone feels a sense of belonging.
