The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Hate speech

  • Of hate speech, elders and leaders

    Of hate speech, elders and leaders

    In those days when they were venerated as custodians of wisdom, elders dutifully rebuked children for insulting those older than them. Foul language attracted a frown. When the matter was thought to be serious, the cane surfaced with a whack on the head.

    Not anymore.

    Respect and moderation have lost their meanings. Public discourse has taken on the colour of abuse. Politics has become toxic; a do-or-die affair.

    Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo’s warning that hate speech will be treated as terrorism has somehow dampened the vociferous push for the dismemberment of Nigeria. The argument has been downgraded to restructuring. The debates are exciting.

    But what is hate speech? Is there really a clear correlation between hate speech and terrorism?

    The Arewa youths who issued the Igbo an October deadline to quit the North have since withdrawn their threat. Our hearts were pounding. It was like awaiting the arrival of some hurricane. But Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) leader Nnamdi Kanu keeps opening his mouth wide.

    We need to draw the line between hate speech and all that blabbing and babbling by our politicians. Besides, we should do nothing to endanger freedom of speech, which is a fundamental pillar of democracy.

    Consider Senator  Isa Misau (APC, Bauchi), whom the police have been seeking to take in since he levelled some allegations against the leadership. He said officers paid as much as N2.5m for special promotion through the Police Service Commission (PSC). Furious, the police went after the retired officer and accused him of deserting the Force.

    The lawmaker went ballistic. He hurled more allegations at the police and threatened to report the matter to the Senate.

    Who will investigate the police? All we hear are threats against Misau, who has been accused of everything, including forgery, defamation and perjury. None of these charges has been proven.  I suspect the police may one day slam the gentleman with a charge for making hate speeches against their revered leadership.

    The Senate will respond by summoning the police chief, who must come in uniform, to explain why he allowed his good offices to be used in fractions aimed at lowering  the esteem of a distinguished senator.

    A bill that will hold the record of being the fastest to be passed into law seems to be on the way to the Senate. The hate speech bill has won the heart of the much respected Senate. Renowned law teacher Prof Itse Sagay had accused the lawmakers of fleecing the treasury by taking home huge salaries and allowances, which remain secret to the taxpayer. Instead of denying this with facts and figures, senators tore at him with invectives.

    Unrepentant, the professor challenged the lawmakers to come clean on the allegations. They refused and accused him of making hate speeches against the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. We all know that the Senate harbours our distinguished men and women of whom we are so proud. Hate speeches against them will not be allowed to gain credibility and thereby bring the lawmakers ridicule, odium and scorn from right thinking Nigerians.

    Nevertheless, it won’t  be out of place to ask: when will the Senate bring down the gavel on this allegation of jumbo salaries and allowances by baring it all? Are senators afraid of the public backlash if their pay is found to be indeed outrageous? Or is it a matter of mere pride – that the salary and allowances are private and personal?  But the cash comes from the public purse, doesn’t it?

    Will Sagay now be seized and hurled before the senators for alleged terrorism to test the law?

    Just as Misau has stood by his allegations against the police, Senator Aisha “Mama Taraba”Alhassan has remained unshaken in her resolve to dump President Muhammadu Buhari for former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar should the latter choose to run for president in 2019. She said so on a visit to Atiku and sealed it all with an interview on the BBC Hausa Service.

    Some patriots, including those who call themselves Buharists (I still don’t get what that means) , among them Kaduna Governor Nasir El-Rufai, are falling over one another to defend the President. They are calling for Alhassan’s head, accusing her of disloyalty and of making hate speeches against Buhari, who has so far demonstrated the wisdom of a clever old man in this matter. Mama Taraba remains the minister of Women Affairs. Sycophancy, indeed, has its limits.

    Alhassan’s courage and sincerity in a society that lacks bold men and women and hacks down its brave ones have been praised. Hers is surely no hate speech. But many have descended on El-Rufai for showing his hand in the matter. They have gone into the archives to dig out what his former boss, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, said of him in reply to what El-Rufai wrote about him in his book, “The accidental public servant”, which many have predicted to be the forerunner of a more current volume to be titled, “The accidental governor”.

    Of El-Rufai, Obasanjo wrote: ” Nasir’s penchant for reputation savaging is almost pathological…I recognised his weaknesses, the worst being his inability to be loyal to anybody or any issue consistently for long, but only to Nasir El-Rufai… My vivid recollection of him is penchant for lying, for unfair embellishment of stories and his inability to sustain loyalty for long…”

    A memo El-Rufai wrote to President Buhari in which he declared the APC a failure has bobbed up from  nowhere. All this in an attempt to expound the view that of the governor, it cannot be said “he is as straight as a gun”.

    So long for a Buharist and his ilk.

    Just after the Mama Taraba bombshell, Atiku stoked up a fresh argument, saying he had been abandoned by the APC, which he claimed to have helped to win the 2015 election. Besides, he was obviously saying that he had been tarred – wrongly, he insists – with the brush of corruption. He challenged anybody with proof of his alleged corruption to bring it up or keep quiet forever.

    Poor Atiku. So discomfited was he  that he told his traducers to purge themselves of the wrong feeling that every rich man must have made it not by  dint of hard work but by some undue advantage – fraud, to be precise.

    He said he did not become the vice-president in 1999 as a pauper because he had been a successful investor after his retirement from the Customs Service. “If Atiku is a thief merely because of his resourcefulness and successful investments, my political enemies should tell Nigerians the source of their stupendous wealth,” Atiku said. He did not name his political enemies. Was the Turaki Adamawa afraid of being charged with making hate speeches?

    There is no need to get emotional over these matters, Your Excellency. The hate speech law will soon be here to put the purveyors of these allegations against you in their place. You are not the only one being maligned.

    The other day a friend sent me a photograph of the devastation of the hurricane that has ravaged parts of the United States with the caption: “Florida. We thank God that our own disaster is politicians defrauding us, not nature.”

    Now a note of caution to all those who -without proof – accuse the Senate of harbouring criminals, liars, pedophiles, forgers and drug pushers:  Watch out. The hate speech law will soon be activated and you may face terrorism charges.

     

    Biafra: Time to roll back the tanks

    The crisis in some parts of the Southeast should not be allowed to escalate. The separatist leader, Nnamdi Kanu, is on bail, but he keeps rocking the boat through his speeches, in violation of his  bail terms. He appears to have successfully rallied behind his cause a large army of youths, some of who have sworn to go the whole hog with him.

    The military has launched “Operation Python Dance” to rein in criminals in the Southeast. It has said that the action is not targeted at the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB).

    A group of soldiers passing through Kanu’s home have clashed with the activists. IPOB said somebody died. The military claimed nobody died. Soldiers stormed the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) office in Umuahia, smashing work tools.

    A policeman was killed yesterday in Port Harcourt.

    The Igbo man is naturally endowed with skills to excel in a united Nigeria. What he should push for is an environment where he can use his God-given talents without any hinderance, and a fair share of the national patrimony. Not secession.

    Boko Haram is still on the rampage. Kidnappers are on the loose. Armed robbers remain in business and poverty is rumbling through the land.  This is not the time for another national upheaval.

    Let’s muffle the drums of war. Let’s roll back the tanks.

  • Council tackles hate speech

    The chairman of Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), Abdullahi Candido has set up a 21-man committee on national unity. The development, Candido said, is to stop the increasing level of hate speech, which is causing a lot of disaffection among Nigerians.

    Members of the committee, drawn from various ethnic, religious and political groups in the council, are to work out modalities for the intensive sensitisation and engagement of residents on promotion of peace and unity, in the interest of inclusive development.

    Speaking while inaugurating the committee, the AMAC chairman lamented the growing hate utterances in the land, thereby causing untold disaffection amongst the populace.

    This, he said, informed the decision to constitute the 21-man committee, to help foster peace and unity building process, without which no proper development can be attained within the council, being a heterogeneous capital city.

    He noted that the terms of reference for the committee include engaging major stakeholders in each of the 12 political wards on the importance of unity.

    Others are campaign against politics of division, hate across religious, tribal and regional lines as well as preach the values of oneness, peace and unity as panacea for our growth/ development

    Also, organisation of lectures driving home the importance of peaceful coexistence at least twice a year.

    Furthermore, the committee is expected to submit quarterly report high lighting successes or challenges of its mandate.

    “In the last couple of months there seems to be some mistrust among the persons that make up this country and there seems to be a kind of bad relationship among the good people of this country.

    “Without peace and harmony we can’t leave as people not to think of providing infrastructure,” Candido stressed.

    In his response, on behalf of the committee members, the chairman of the committee, John Bawa assured the commitment of the members to ensuring a peaceful atmosphere.

    He said, “We will go to all ethnic groups, tribal associations and political classes to ensure that we install peace in the area council.”

  • On the Hate-speech Bill

    SIR: I have followed with keen interest the controversy over the  Hate-speech Bill with several commentators and the general public insisting that government position on monitoring Nigerians on social media is unwise, insensitive retrogressive and uncivilized.

    Hate speeches as terrorism? I hope we are not going back to the proverbial Egypt!

    Doesn’t it look like gagging? Using the state apparatus to monitor individual comments?  We must be careful here. In as much as the purveyors of such insidious statement are on the loose, any decision that could jeopardise or threaten our already fragile coexistence should be avoided.

    Thomas Jefferson, the third American president 1801 – 1809 in his letter to Edward Carington 1786, laid emphasis on the importance of a free press to keep government check. He concludes that if he had to choose between “a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter”. So, it is expedient that while other nations are making progress globally, Nigeria shouldn’t be left behind.

    Government must be ready to entertain criticism, especially in a democratic environment and try as much as possible to prevent divisive tendencies like quit notice from one ethnic group to another. Social media is a powerful tool for social and political engagement. This was exploited to its fullest during 2015 general elections in favour of the opposition then now the ruling party. I am not saying it should be used to pull down the government or destroy a perceived enemy, but the press shouldn’t be shackled.

    Setting the military in motion to monitor social media whose primary duty is to defend the nation against external aggression is worrisome. The military at the moment should be facing the dreaded Boko Haram sect; mandating them to monitor who and what an individual comment about the government is a distraction.

    We should be concerned about the economic recession and its implication on the citizens; I am disturbed about the rate at which Nigerians turn into beggars. That should worry the government more.

     

    • Alifia Sunday,

    Ilorin, Kwara State

  • Hate speech

    Hate speech

    •We must be careful in criminalising it

    Hate speech is the latest of the troubles afflicting our country. Special attention has been drawn to this political and social aberration since the return of President Muhammadu Buhari from his medical leave in London. So worrisome have the concept and practice of hate speech become that the Federal Government decided to take an ad-hoc approach to its management. About a few hours after the President’s broadcast to the nation, a summary decision was made to criminalise hate speech.

    In this respect, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo proclaimed hate speech a crime at a National Security Conference in Aso Villa, Abuja: “The Federal Government has drawn a line on hate speech. Hate speech is a species of terrorism; terrorism, as it is defined popularly, is the unlawful use of violence or intimidation against individuals or groups, especially for political ends.”

    Soon after this, the Inspector-General of Police quickly ordered his staff across the country to arrest those who perpetrate hate speech, either in the social media or via conventional media platforms. In support of the Vice President, the Sultan of Sokoto added that “none will be allowed to get away with making speeches that can cause sedition or that can cause violence.”

    It is not unlikely that the average citizen must be equally worried about the rise in the incidence of hate speech, especially in the last one year or two. Vitriolic verbal attacks on sections of the country by apostles of secession or disparaging remarks about other nationalities by issuers of quit notice to members of other nationalities should be enough to alarm those who value public order, social cohesion, and harmonious existence among people of diverse cultures in our society.

    Hate speech in other countries have led to violence and death of innocent citizens, and this explains why many liberal democracies from Canada to Denmark, Germany, India, South Africa, and the United States,  enacted hate speech or hate crime laws. The social, economic, and political consequences of hate speech are too obvious for any society with a sense of self-preservation to ignore, especially those with such diverse social, cultural, and religious orientations as Nigeria. For the danger inherent in hate speech, such as is already causing tensions across the country in respect of quit notice and partial withdrawal of quit notice to members of other communities, people mandated to manage public order have good reasons to want to discourage the purveyors of hate speech.

    But there is need for caution about taking a knee-jerk reaction to a complex matter, such as conjuring a legal correlation between hate speech and terrorism. It is instructive to take note of UNESCO’s observation that “hate speech lies in a complex nexus with freedom of expression; individual, group and minority rights; and concepts of dignity, equality and safety of person.” Undoubtedly, freedom of speech and expression is a value that democratic societies hold dear, just as citizens need to recognise the importance to respect the rights of others in the exercise of their own rights. Before citizens are arrested for hate speech or special courts are created, as recommended by the governors, our democratic process must not be compromised. For example, it is dangerous to equate popular definition of hate speech with legally binding definition, just as it is irregular in the context of rule of law to summarily rename hate speech as terrorism, or to set up a special court without proper codification of hate speech.

    For the avoidance of doubt, this paper finds hate speech obnoxious and a manifestation of primitive behaviour in a modern society. But  there is need for principle of proportionality in criminalising this anti-social behaviour. There are other offences in the country’s criminal and penal codes that can respond to hate speech more appropriately than terrorism. Sedition and incitement are such crimes. Applying such laws allows for immediate response by government to hate speech.

    If we must create new laws to respond to hate speech as it is done in other democracies, then there is need to be democratic about it by subjecting such decision to due process of lawmaking.  In a democratic ethos, it is risky to treat enactment of law in the manner of making decrees under non-democratic governments. The matter of free speech as a fundamental human right requires that we do not rush into a situation that can allow any government or its agency to muzzle or muffle free speech under the pretext of fighting hate speech.

    We should not create new laws or interpret existing ones in a way to suggest stifling or criminalising political dissent or criticism of the party or persons in power.  Above all, we believe that, in addition to making a clear law on hate speech, both government and society need to verify the root cause of the rise in expression of prejudice and intolerance in the country, with a view to fighting it.

    Let us nurture a polity in which individuals and groups can disagree without being disagreeable.

  • The Hate-speech Bill

    The fiendish spirit of divisiveness is on the prowl in the Nigerian nation-space. Everywhere you go, you can hear deprecatory protests against marginalization, against the corporate existence of Nigeria, against inequity, social injustice, ethnical and religious intolerance, against the unhindered ravages of Fulani herdsmen and hues and cries for the restructuring of the federation or even the outright balkanization of Nigeria as a country. These protests are given a common-on fillip by the philippics of the educated elite and the dichotomous diatribes of the proletariat, otherwise known as “hate speech”, ensconcing fissiparous tendencies, anti-group invectives, the germs of inter-tribal violence and even secessionist inclinations in their overt articulations. This is the untoward flicker of schismatic light which the federal government, with the aid of the legislature, wants to snuff out before it snowballs into a conflagration. Good.

    I am, however, in the grip of gnawing fears about the executive-driven Hate-Speech Bill, which is not unlikely to be signed into law, with efficient speed, by the executive, its author.  The bridle on the eruption and wildfire spread of hate speeches, which must include hate songs, such as was recently intuited and sung by one bucolic lady in the North to disparage the Igbo and to arrogate the Niger Delta oil to the North, must be applied. But is such a law not likely to trample upon the citizens’ fundamental human rights as enshrined in sections 22 and 39 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Cap. 10, LFN, 1990), in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), etc. with regard to the freedom of expression?

    Will this prospective law not muzzle free speech, criticism and dissentient views of the government, particularly in socio-political and economic milieux in which rank injustice, inequity, howling nepotism, naked favouritism, cronyism on stilts, barefaced nonfeasance, malfeasance and misfeasance reign supreme?

    A corpus of questions has been thrown up by the proposed law: first, will the ruling party not use this prospective law to hound members of the opposition into extinction, considering that even the ongoing “war” against corruption is patently targeted at the opponents of the ruling party? Secondly, if the Hate Speech Bill is passed into law, and anyone is accused of a hate speech or song, what new-fangled legal name would be given to the offence: felony, treasonable felony, slander, libel or terrorism which, under the provisions of section 33 (1) (a) of the Terrorism Act, 2011, an accused found guilty thereunder, “is liable to life imprisonment or to a fine of not less N150 million”?

    Thirdly, how will a hate speech be determined? Fourthly, will this law be targeted at the common man in the society only or at the bourgeoisie as well? Fifthly, will the Hate Speech Law be powerful enough to look the northern elders and the Arewa youths straight in the face or is it intended only for the Niger Delta militants and Nnamdi Kanu and his group? Sixthly, if someone, for example, complains bitterly about the gruesome murder of a Gideon Akaluka or of a Madam Agbahime, whose murderers were either disingenuously not identified or identified and freed, would such a complainant be charged with a hate speech? Or, seventhly, when Fulani herdsmen brazenly enter into someone else’s farmland against all the principles of Ryland’s vs. Fletcher, destroying all his crops, killing the farm owner and raping his wife into the bargain, and the relations of the victim kick up a shindy, using caustic language against the ethnic nationality of the murderous criminals, would such “hate speakers” be accused of an offence?

    I have a hunch that a Hate Speech Law would introduce military rigorism and authoritarianism into the body politic and would definitely erode the citizens’ fundamental human rights. The way out of hate speeches and songs, I am persuaded, is good governance. The President should steer clear of military language and take the entire nation as his own constituency, to start with. The nation’s economy is in dire straits; this calls for a definite action plan aimed at the restoration of the glorious days when each region was self-sufficient and not a leech on the centre, no thanks to the notorious section 162 of the 1999 Constitution; the country’s economy remains a mono-cultural economy in spite of the threats from the European and American worlds that it would be an offence, in the foreseeable future, for any vehicle-manufacturing company to produce any petroleum-oil-using vehicles;  the infrastructural facilities in the country are either decayed or putrefying; the internecine feud in the ruling party is a clog in the wheel of good governance; the educational system is in the doldrums; the health sector is in shambles, which is why President Muhammadu Buhari has to shuttle between Abuja and London, in search of treatment, even though there are countless, highly qualified, medical practitioners in Nigeria. The Grade A roads in Nigeria are death-traps; staple foods are priced beyond the reach of the common man; the Naira-Dollar exchange rate is in the firmaments; these days, suicide has become a fashionable escape from grinding poverty…

    One big problem with Nigeria is that its leaders junket round the civilized world, see and enjoy beautiful facilities, drive, or are driven, on apian ways, stay in ten-star hotels (if there are, gambolling where the angels fear to tread), go to well-equipped hospitals in the UK, America, Germany, India, etc., and put their children in choice schools in those countries, then return to facilities-deficit Nigeria to live in their posh edifices, ride in their flashy cars and fly in their jets, leaving the very bad roads for Frank Fanon’s wretched of the earth! These are more dangerous pockets of war (the whys and wherefores of Nigeria’s regression) than hate speech!

    Nigeria has all the resources (human, mineral and material) to be a super power! These same leaders brazenly, and with aplomb, intone the indivisibility and inviolability of Nigeria as though Nigeria stood on a more solid substructure than the British Empire, India before 1948, Yugoslavia, before it balkanized into ethnic lines and Sudan, before South Sudan was born. It is high time the Nigerian government trod on the path of civilization: organize a plebiscite to determine the wish of the people concerning, for example, restructuring of the country, as was done in Brexit and in the referendum to determine whether or not Scotland should secede from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and shunned militaristic threats of blood!

     

    • Akiri, an attorney, writes from Lagos.

  • Hate speech: Group seeks ruthless action against propagators

    A youth advocacy group, the Buhari South-East Youth Movement (BUSEYM), has admonished security agencies to deal ruthlessly and decisively with any individual or group propagating hate speeches and disseminating false information capable of threatening the peace and security of lives and properties of Nigerians mostly on social media platforms. The group called on Nigerians, mostly the youths and women, “not to avail themselves as tools to perpetuate such dastardly acts by disgruntled/corruption opposition politicians.”

    In a thank you message to all state chapters of BUSEYM, signed by the Director-General and the National Publicity Secretary of the group,  Engr. Nwabueze Onwuneme, and Comrade Igwe Obinna Samuel respectively in Enugu, the group expressed gratitude to both members and non-members of the group most especially the youths and women of the zone who heed the  group’s “repeated calls and warning against being part of irrational and irresponsible protests orchestrated by the son of a former governor of Abia State, demanding the resignation/impeachment of President Muhammadu Buhari.”

    The group described the president’s recovery and return as evidence of God’s mercies and answers to prayer of Nigerians. They also expressed gratitude to Vice President Yemi Osibanjo for “exhibiting competence and capacity” while he held sway as Acting President.

    The group appealed to President Buhari to address economic challenges and other issues giving rise to secessionist agitations.

  • APC backs creation of hate speech special courts

    APC backs creation of hate speech special courts

    The National Youth Caucus of All Progressives Congress (APC) is in support of the establishment of special court for hate speech in the country.

    The National Chairman of the group, Mr Mark Nsimbehe, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Friday in Abuja that such courts would help to guard against divisive speeches in the country.

    “We are for peace, we are for progress and we are one Nigeria; so, we urge the Federal Government to step up and arrest those disgruntled elements and their sponsors accordingly. ‘’ he said, and urged proponents of restructuring to do so with caution.

    Political structures, according to Nsimbehe, will evolve over time ,saying  Nigeria has been restructured at various times yet agitations for further restructuring has not stopped.

    He said: “Let us therefore restructure our hearts and minds so that the real restructuring of the country can be meaningful.

    “We also want to see a blueprint of the restructuring as it is being clamoured for us to know the essence of it, if it means creating more states or reducing the states’ revenue formula.

    “We also want to know if it is about a change from the presidential to other forms of government; let them detail their position and submit same to the National Assembly.’’

    Nsimbehe said that the group was in support of the government’s anti-graft war, adding that the courage and the political will the government was using to recover loots was also commendable.

    He said that the group shared in the pains of Nigerians as it concerned high cost of food items.

    He said that food became scarce partly due to the insurgency in the North-East as farmers abandoned their farms for fear of being attacked.

    Nsimbehe, however, said that the government had done well in returning the farmers to their various locations and expressed optimism that in few months, the food problem would abate.

    He reiterated the group’s loyalty and support to APC and its programmes, especially those targeted at improving the lives of the youths like N-Power and conditional cash transfer.

     

  • Hate Speech: NBC gets Fed Govt’s order to sanction erring stations

    Hate Speech: NBC gets Fed Govt’s order to sanction erring stations

    THE Federal Government has directed the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to sanction any radio or television station that broadcasts hate speech.

    The move is part of efforts to stem the growing tide of hate speech.

    Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed gave the directive in Abuja yesterday at the NBC Third Annual Lecture Series, which also coincides with the commission’s 25th anniversary.

    But, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, yesterday assured the Federal Government of the traditional institution’s support to criminalise hate speech and fake news.

    Mohammed said: “As a matter of fact, the challenges facing the NBC have never become more daunting, considering the increasing propensity of some radio and television stations across the country to turn over their platforms to the purveyors of hate speech. It is the responsibility of the NBC to put these broadcast stations in check before they set the country on fire.

    “As the NBC celebrates what is a milestone – a quarter of a century – in its existence, I urge the commission to redouble its efforts in discharging its mandate. The NBC must ensure a strict adherence to the broadcasting code, and errant stations must be sanctioned accordingly to serve as a deterrent. The nation looks up to the NBC to restore sanity to the broadcast industry. The commission cannot afford to do any less at this critical time. It cannot afford to fail the nation.”

    Senior Adviser to Minister Segun Adeyemi, in a statement, quoted him as citing the ignominious role played by a radio station in fueling the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, which led to the loss of over 800,000 lives in 100 days.

    Mohammed urged the NBC not to allow the purveyors of hate speech to lead Nigeria to the path of destruction.

    “If you tune into many radio stations, for example, you will be shocked by the things being said, the careless incitement to violence and the level of insensitivity to the multi-religious, multi-ethnic nature of our country. Unfortunately, even some of the hosts of such radio programmes do little or nothing to stop such incitements.

    “Oftentimes, they are willing collaborators of hate speech campaigners. This must not be allowed to continue because it is detrimental to the unity and well-being of our country,” he warned.

    The minister re-echoed the recent position of Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo “that it is the resolve of the government that none will be allowed to get away with making speeches that can cause sedition or that can cause violence, especially because when we make these kind of pronouncements and do things that can cause violence or destruction of lives and property, we are no longer in control”.

    But, the Sultan, who spoke in Abuja at the NBC event, added that hate speech should be declared as terrorism offence.

    He said the traditional institution was in support of Osinbajo’s declaration that “none will be allowed to get away with making speeches that can cause sedition or that can cause violence”.

    The monarch said the phenomenon of hate speech and fake news had reached an alarming state and decisive action should be taken by the government.

    The monarch said he was a victim of fake news only on Wednesday when he was misrepresented at a Nigerian Labour Congress event in Abuja that “he kicked against restructuring”.

    He clarified his position at the event that he was only against any restructuring that would lead to the disintegration of Nigeria.

    The monarch said he was shocked to see news report on the event with the headline, “Restructuring, Sultan kicked, Oshiomole booed”.

    The monarch said the freedom of speech as enshrined in the constitution should not be used to violate other people’s rights.

    The Sultan decried a development where President Muhammadu Buhari’s health condition was politicised and made to generate hate speeches.

    He called on political and religious leaders at all levels to guide their utterances and condemn hate speeches.

    Major Hamza Al-Mustapha (rtd), the former Chief Security Officer (CSO) to late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha, decried the alarming rate of hate speech.

    He said although the phenomenon was not new, government must be decisive in addressing the trend.

    Al-Mustapha said there was international dimension to sponsorship of hate speech especially by those who had seen the potential of Nigeria.

  • Fed Govt to establish special courts for hate speech

    •IG gets order on community policing

    Surveyors of hate speech are likely to face special courts like kidnap and terrorism suspects, the Presidency gave the indication yesterday.

    It was one of the resolutions at last week’s retreat on National Security according to the communique made available by media adviser to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande.

    Akande said the Federal Government would help states to develop a template on how such special courts would be established and managed.

    He said the retreat expressed concerns about the delay in the criminal justice system and the NEC concluded that prompt action by law enforcement agencies was imperative.

    “NEC members urged prompt action in the arrest and prosecution of perpetrators of terrorist acts, kidnapping and purveyors of hate speeches. To facilitate this, the designation of special courts was also advocated and the consensus was that judicial and executive arms of the federal and state governments would be working together to establish such courts,” he said.

    He said the retreat which was convened to review current security challenges across Nigeria featured presentations on national security situation, terrorism in the northeast, herders/farmers clashes, ethno-religious crises, regional agitations for secession, hate speech, kidnapping and security challenges in the Niger/Delta.

    He said the NEC recognized the herders/farmers conflict as a problem of land use,p which had “however taken an ethnic and religious coloration” and agreed that both the Federal Government and sates needed to properly define the problems and eschew the ethno-religious construction “of what is otherwise an economic challenge.”

    He said the council observed that it would be useful to bring the different groups of herdsmen and the farmers together to meet and work out some of the issues affecting them.

    The retreat also demanded that community policing model be immediately enforced ahead of the required constitutional amendment for state police.

    It was agreed that policing the country and the entire law enforcement generally could not effectively continue without devolving policing and law enforcement out to the states.

    Akande said Osinbajo directed Inspector-General of Police Ibrahim Idris to initiate community policing in line with the provisions of section 215(3) of the 1999 constitution as amended and section 10(1) of the Police Act.

    “According to section 215(3) of the Constitution, “the President or such Minister of the Government of the Federation as he may authorise in that behalf may give to the Inspector-General of Police such lawful directions with respect to the maintenance and securing of public safety and public order as he may consider necessary and the Inspector-General of Police shall comply with those directions or cause them to be complied with.

  • Osinbajo lauded for classifying hate speech as terrorism

    Osinbajo lauded for classifying hate speech as terrorism

    The Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo has been hailed for his classification of hate speech as act of terrorism.

    A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Sebastine Hon said Osinbajo was “absolutely correct” in his position on the issue of hate speech.

    Hon, in a statement Thursday, noted that Section 1(2) of the Terrorism Act, 2011, has described ‘an act of terrorism’ as an act deliberately done with malice, which, amongst other things, is intended or can reasonably be regarded as having been intended to seriously intimidate a population or seriously destabilise or destroy the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of a country or an international organisation.

    He argued that there could be no better description of the current situation in Nigeria, where ethnic or cultural groups are issuing, willy-nilly organised and unguarded threats to other ethnic groups in Nigeria.

    “I personally must commend the Acting President for this timely proclamation, which only confirms and I dare say addresses my public statement a few days ago that the Federal Government must act fast to arrest our apparent, if not clear, descent to total anarchy, due to the avalanche of hate speeches flying over the whole place.

    “The 2011 Terrorism Act was amended by Act No. 10 of 2013, which upped the minimum punishment for terrorism from 2 years to five years.

    “I will ask the Federal Government to bring to bear the full weight of the law on perpetrators and their financiers or supporters – as Section 4 of the 2011 Act criminalises support for terrorism.

    “We must not permit, I say with all vehemence, our collective existence to be threatened for very narrow and selfish reasons,” Hon said.