By Ijeoma Ukazu –
One Voice, a coalition of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), has condemned in totality death penalty enshrined in the Hate Speech Bill before the National Assembly.
The coalition is of the opinion that instead of a Hate Speech Bill, there are other extant laws that takes care of bad utterances in the country.
The Coalition agreed at a media conference in Lagos with the theme: “Freedom of Expression and the Combat of Hate Speech in Nigeria”, that making laws to prohibit hate speeches is like increasing funding for police and army to fight crime and quell uprising without addressing the causes of increase in crimes and tension.
Speaking to Journalists a member of the coalition, the President, Committee for Defense of Human Rights (CDHR), Comrade (Barr) Malachy Ugwummadu said that “the executive arm of government and the National Assembly had, however, recently found a common ground in pursuing a draconian legislation on “hate speech”. In this, they clearly intend to surpass the colonial overlords, successive military regimes and the world’s most brutral dictatorships in legal savagery. Nigerians should for once exercise their rights to resist blatant oppression by a degenerate political class.
“Hate Speech Bill did not appear on the website of the Nigerian Senate. The idea of hiding the bill and an attempt to pass it secretly without public participation speaks volume of government intentions.”
He noted that there are a number of other legislations that can take care of issues of hate speech, like the Defamation Laws, Cybercrime Prohibition Act as well as laws that censor Broadcasts industry have prohibition for hate speech.
Ugwummadu who also spoke on the topic: “Hate Speech And The Right To Freedom Of Expression In Democratic Governance”: The Legal Pespective, said government should strengthen the institutions of democracy. We reject hate speech bill and reject death penalty. Keeping hate speech bill secrete from the public render it illegal.
“By far more than the foregoing observations and recommendations for stemming the ever disturbing incidences of hate speech, in any society, is the overriding imperatives of dealing with the socio-economic and cultural conditions that dehumanize people of any nation to believe that resort to ethnic and clannish considerations other than merit, content and competences guarantee them better opportunities to engage in a heterogeneous society like ours”, he added.
Director, International Press Centre (IPC), Lanre Arogundade said on the surface, it might be argued that the hate speech bill before the Senate seeks to check the excesses of those who may want to promote intra and inter ethnic ill feelings as well as help to check the menace of killings in the country.
He argued that Nigeria already has a plethora of laws against defamation, against libel as that can be invoked against purveyors of hate speech, adding that a legislation that will scare citizens away from calling a spade a spade when it comes to bad governance, anti-people’s policies is not in the best interest of the country.
Suggesting a way forward, Arogundade said that the country needs engagement by multiple stakeholders to examine effective measures to address hate speech.
Earlier in his keynote address, the Executive Director, Independent Advocacy Project, (IAP) and Chair, OneVoice Media Committee, Pastor Adedeji Adeleye said there is a debate that Hate Speech Bill when passed into law could be misused by politicians and political office holders in government to hunt down opposition, and critical civil society’s non-state actors.
Adeleye said the debate is now over freedom of speech or expression, hate speech and hate speech law. Critics have argued that the term “hate speech” will eventually be used to silence critics.
He added that there exists sufficient Nigerian extant laws that could take care of hate speech in the country with little amendment, hence a hate speech law is unnecessary.
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