Our democracy has been repeatedly qualified since we re-adopted democracy many years ago, and to allow a bill like this to fly is to alter that system of government beyond recognition.
As soon as one tries to move on from one issue of public embarrassment in this country, more embarrassing developments pop up like quick-fire. One’s pen can hardly catch up with the spate of absurdities emanating from within and outside the government. Every day, after picking up the morning papers, Nigerians wonder whether they are stuck in an Orwellian nightmare.
Recently, Nigerians were faced with the news of a very controversial bill being considered by the Senate. The proposed law, publicly known as the “Hate Speech Bill” is sponsored by Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, chairman of the Senate committee on media and public affairs. The major highlight of the bill is its stipulation that anyone who engages in “hate speech that results in the death of another person shall die by hanging upon conviction”. Also, in the proposed law, “harassment” on the grounds of ethnicity or racial contempt is punishable with “not less than a five-year jail term or a fine of not less than N10m or both.”
The bill generally contains hefty punishment for so-called offences that, by their nature, can be twisted to suit the designs of corrupt or inept government officers or agents of the executive or judiciary. The potential of abuse of the bill is so great that no right-thinking Nigerian should be heard to be in support of it, not to talk of elected representatives of the people who are in parliament to protect the rights of the people. With the emergence of this bill, the right of every Nigerian to free speech and the freedom of expression is endangered.
The bill prescribes that “a person who uses, publishes, presents, produces, plays, provides, distributes and/or directs the performance of any material, written and/or visual, which is threatening, abusive or insulting or involves the use of threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour commits an offence”. For the draftsmen and sponsor of this bill to presume that common insults demand legislative attention is perplexing.
By the wording, any newspaper article, Facebook post, or utterance in any guise or form can be caught in the dubious net of “hate speech” if the ‘right’ person feels threatened, abused or insulted by it. It reads more like a dictator’s decree than words contained in a document proposed to become an act of a democratic parliament. It is a weak response by the government to criticism and legal opposition. Instead of responding with better performance and results, somehow, the government plans to respond with the threat of death by hanging.
There is already so much ethnic tension in the country, propagated by the government and ignorant private citizens alike. To create a legal weapon that can be employed by the evil doers in our midst is unspeakable at a time when we need to look beyond our differences. The government has found a problem and instead of solving it, it seeks to exploit it…
This draconian attempt to encroach on free speech is not the first time the government has demonstrated intolerance for otherwise free speech. Last year, the government revealed that it was monitoring online media and social media platforms for comments it claimed could incite people to violence. That came after the failure of the “Anti-Social Media Bill” introduced in 2015, which was stifled after strong rejection by the populace. Many of us knew that it was a way to silence critics, which unfortunately for the leaders of this government, are an enhanced feature of modern society.
Our democracy has been repeatedly qualified since we re-adopted this system of government many years ago, and to allow a bill like this to fly is to alter that system of government beyond recognition. Freedom is the essential feature of a democratic system, and while people have found ways to qualify democracy, like in the case of the United States of America’s Electoral College system, freedom cannot be qualified and more advanced societies like the U.S. understand this. This is why free expression and speech is allowed in the U.S. and other places and guaranteed by law. Just ask Donald Trump.
Only recently, Tony Ezimakor, the Abuja bureau chief of Independent newspapers was seized and held without charge by the Department for State Security (DSS) for publishing an investigative piece that exposed the clandestine payment of millions of euros for the release of some of the Chibok girls abducted by Boko Haram. Despite being a journalist, he was held for about a week, even while several rights groups and individuals from all walks raised alarm and demanded his release. Some groups gathered to ‘celebrate’ his release afterwards, in what can be described as a sad and unfortunate event in a democratic society.
While we fight for our journalists who risk life and limb to tell the news, the barrel of the gun is slowly turning on the general public, and comprising people of all statures – the rich, poor, ignorant etc., who will be unlucky to be targeted with the obnoxious piece of legislation that the hate speech bill will become if it ever makes it into law. The indicators are not encouraging going forward and where the people are caught in the middle of measures designed to stifle the opposition, then politics has again moved into the gutter that it very often ends up in.
At this time, globally, 104 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes, including the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2015, and Benin in 2016. Of the remaining countries, seven have abolished death penalties for ordinary crimes, while 30 are considered to have abolished it in practice because they do not carry out any executions. Amongst the 57 or more countries that retain the death penalty, many, at least, have outlawed crude executions like hanging, in place of “more humane” methods like fatal injections. It is in this world that the Nigerian Senate has now passed, for the first reading, a bill that prescribes death by hanging for a supposed crime that is so open to individual interpretation.
The bill is a Trojan horse that must not be let to pass through the gates of the National Assembly. One wonders why the government is so eager to regulate free speech in this age. There have been repeated attempts by this government to criminalise dissent and even engage in an outright contravention of the law to stamp out criticism.
The DSS, police and lawmakers have been taken by the spirit of the military era and one need not go too far to determine its source. Someone needs to remind these agencies and government officials that we run a democracy in this country. The Gung-ho tactics of yesteryear should not be allowed to creep back into the system. Where it has already consumed the minds of people in charge, the electorate need to make an informed choice in 2019. There is no compromising a basic freedom like the freedom of expression.
Beyond the archaic reasoning behind the bill and its prescribed punishments, the proposed legislation also seeks to create an “independent National Commission for Hate Speeches”. It seems that every law enacted by Nigerian legislators has a commission or agency created to oversee it. While it is troubling that multiple commissions and agencies are being created to eat into already lean government resources, it is doubly perplexing to find out that these commissions and agencies are created for roles that are duplicitous and absurd, as in this case.
The bill is a Trojan horse that must not be let to pass through the gates of the National Assembly. One wonders why the government is so eager to regulate free speech in this age. There have been repeated attempts by this government to criminalise dissent and even engage in an outright contravention of the law to stamp out criticism. This move by the sponsor and his collaborators is in very bad faith and has nothing to do with hate speech, which no reasonable person endorses.
There is already so much ethnic tension in the country, propagated by the government and ignorant private citizens alike. To create a legal weapon that can be employed by the evil doers in our midst is unspeakable at a time when we need to look beyond our differences. The government has found a problem and instead of solving it, it seeks to exploit it to achieve its own draconian agenda to the detriment of the people.
We all heard the drivel that emanated from the likes of Nnamdi Kanu before his disappearance, much of which can rightly be counted as hate speech. Even then, there were existing laws that were adequate to charge and try him and many others like him. One can say that the introduction of the bill is a greater evil than the totality of drivel that ever escaped the mouth of the now AWOL Kanu.
Premium Times Opinion 21/03/2018
