This seems to be the season of Bills at the Nigeria Senate, they are either being sponsored or rejected, and most of the decisions by the Senators regarding these Bills do not sit well with Nigerians.
The Frivolous Petition Bill, otherwise dubbed the Social Media Bill, is one of those bills that have generated so much buzz in Nigeria.
Our reporter, Lilian Ezejelue had an interview with Japheth Omojuwa at the Internet Freedom Forum which held in Abuja on the 8th and 9th of March. Read the interview below.
Please can you introduce yourself?
My name is Japheth Omojuwa. I’m a farmer, blogger, public speaker, columnist…
Based on recent developments, are you afraid that the frivolous petition bill will make it to become a law, or are you confident that it will never succeed?
Fear comes from feeling like you are powerless. I am not afraid. I feel if we do all we need to do; come together, engage all the tools or activities that we can engage, the bill will not be passed. And if after everything the bill gets passed then the battle just changes from stopping the bill from being passed to having to do something to make sure the bill doesn’t have the sort of effect that they intend for it to have.
But in the meantime aside the Internet Freedom Forum just held, are there other measures you plan to take to ensure that the outcome we all fear, that is the bill being passed, never becomes reality?
Yes, definitely. We are working with EiE to make sure the people’s voices are reflected in terms of the voting that is going on and we are keeping the online conversation going and we are also engaging all the other platforms.
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