THERE appears to be some misconception on the implications of the National Commission for the Prohibition of Hate Speech Bill which passed its first reading at the senate last week. That perhaps explains why, much of the concerns have been on the effects of the bill on the rights of citizens to freedom of speech and expression.
Even as these fears are not out of order, it does appear the real intentions and mortal dangers inherent in the bill are yet to be placed within their proper contexts. For, most of the issues the bill intends to address relate to ethnic hate speeches rather than individual to individual infractions. Though the bill categorized as an offender any person who, uses, publishes, presents, produces, plays and distributes any material written or oral capable of causing threat or involves abusive words or behaviour, its main concerns are with ethnic strife.
But, attention on the proposed piece of legislation has been on its effects on the rights of citizens to freedom of expression. This has led to conclusions that it targets to muzzle freedom of speech which has had unfettered ventilation through the new media. This view is further fuelled by the coincidence of the bill with the avowal of the federal authorities to press on with the regulation of social media practice in the country.
A careful perusal on details of the said bill shows it is heavily skewed to checkmate ethnic hatred, ostensibly to forge a common sense of national belonging. It has serious sanctions against any infringement capable of eliciting ethnic hatred and rivalry within and among the estimated 250 nationalities in the country.
It is in this wise that an individual is deemed to have committed an offence if he intended to stir up ethnic hatred, or having regard to all circumstances; ethnic hatred is likely to be stirred up against any person or persons from such an ethnic group in Nigeria. “Any person who commits an offence under this section shall be liable to life imprisonment and where the act causes any loss of life, the person shall be punished with death by hanging”.
The proposed law also further stipulates that “Any person who knowingly utters words to incite feelings of contempt, hatred, hostility, violence or discrimination against any person, group or community on the basis of ethnicity or race commits an offence and shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment to a term not less than five years, or a fine of not less than N10million or both.
The overall target of the bill for which the setting up of a commission is being proposed is to whittle down ethnic strife, facilitate and promote peaceful co-existence among all ethnic groups indigenous to Nigeria. Through the instrumentality of draconian punishments including death penalty by hanging; the bill seeks to secure citizens’ compliance to national re-orientation and nation building.
But that is where everything went wrong. The senator who proposed the bill, Sabi Abdullahi must have been moved by the reality that hate speech is a major problem in Nigeria adversely affecting co-habitation and things got so bad with the advent of the social media. He was also right in his recognition that Nigerians are torn along ethnic and religious lines more than ever before in its history with ethnic hatred at an all-time high. The need for some form of intervention to steer consciousness away from these destabilizing tendencies may have been the raison d’être for the bill.
He however, veered off tangent in his recommendations as to the appropriate therapies to remedy the identified societal ills. Yes, we have been contending with ethnic hatred and hostilities in this country. Our leaders have not fared any better as some are clear purveyors of these divisive tendencies. Their inability to rise above these predilections is clear from the rising competition between the central authority and primordial cleavages for citizens’ loyalty.
The concerns of the bill on nation building can be understood. It is however, a different ball game whether inculcating a sense of national consciousness and identity can be procured through the harsh penalties contained in the proposed bill. National re-orientation and re-awakening being psychological constructs cannot be procured by force. Neither does compliance depend on draconian and vey unrealistic laws. What is required to get the right responses is moral suasion and real commitment from the government to the overall wellbeing of citizens irrespective of ethnicity and creed.
A leadership imbued with national purpose and commitment; one that places the collective interests of the citizens above primordial considerations is vital to securing the loyalty of the distinct ethnic nationalities in the country. That has been the missing link. The proposed bill is defective and incompetent given that it sets out to address the manifestations of ethnic strife and rivalry rather than the conditions that nurture and sustain them.
Not surprisingly, these conditions can be located in the defective federal structure we operate, an arrangement that places disproportionate powers and resources at the centre. It is in the competition for the control of these powers and resources that ethnicity springs up together with its destabilizing manifestations. It is difficult to fathom how these systemic dysfunctions can be addressed through the hate speech bill. The solution lies in whittling down the awesome powers of the federal arm through devolution, fiscal federalism or restructuring.
The real task is to make Nigerians out of the various nationalities that inhabit this political space such that they begin to see themselves first, as Nigerians rather than members of their inclusive units. The success of this will depend on how the government of the day is perceived in terms of its commitment to building bridges of unity and understanding among the disparate peoples. That is the key issue.
Against all pretences, our politics is still ethnically directed. Ethnicity has remained the major language of political discourse and action even as recruitment within the nation’s highest political offices including the security agencies has miserably followed the same trend. It remains to be conjectured the fate of the proposed legislation in an ethnically fragmented and divided country; a country where citizens see themselves from the narrow prism of their ethnic nationalities with a leadership that is yet to rise above these predilections.
It would seem the proposed bill is dead on arrival given that it is entangled in an intricate web of contradictions. Given that the bill seeks to procure citizens’ loyalty compliance through the wrong channels, it will definitely produce counterproductive outcomes even if it finally scales through. While our laws have copious provisions on some of the issues the legislation is targeted at, there are others that are not susceptible to ease of handle or clear interpretation.
The imprecise nature of the infractions the bill is supposed to address may lend it a tool in the hands of the government to intimidate and harass political opponents. Even then, there is real worry as to the propriety of a bill on ethnic hatred or hate speech for a democratic government inundated by a surfeit of more pressing national challenges.
Insinuations are high that the intention is to muzzle public opinion in preparation for some dubious agenda. We do not require another commission to promote and facilitate harmony and peaceful co-existence. Neither is the enactment of draconian laws all that is required to exorcise the ghost of hate speeches and ethnic hatred from the language of political discourse on these shores.
But the government can still make the difference in the way it carries along the disparate groups by giving them a sense of belonging. A government that cares for the overall welfare of it citizens; adheres to inclusiveness in all its policies and actions sets the right tone for all the ethnic groups to fall behind it. Such a government will have no reason to seek the procurement of citizens’ loyalty through harsh and draconian legislations.
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