Uwazuruike Condemns Social Media, Hate Speech Bill

Goddy Uwazuruike, a lawyer and former President of Aka Ikenga has condemned the proposed social media and hate speech bills saying they are replicates of military era decrees that denied Nigerians of their freedom of speech and expression. 

Uwazuruike in an interview maintain his stand on the proposed social media law.

What do you think of the proposed Social Media bill and Hate Speech Bill?

The Hate Speech Bill is the handiwork of a meddlesome Senator who knows nothing about what the law says; he is still suffering from the hangover of the military era when whatever the Head of State says goes and there is no room for contrary opinion. That someone says something that you don’t like does not make what was said a crime. I have read that bill and I wonder whether the sponsor ever associates with intelligent men and women.

Before 2015, we were able to call in on political talks on radio and television to air our views but as soon as President Muhammadu Buhari took over, all the television and radio stations cut-off phone-in programmes except if they are on sports and health; that is taking away our freedom of speech and expression which is guaranteed by the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended).

Can you imagine a Senator saying that if you say something that leads to a riot or death that you should be put to death? He does not know anything about the individuality of the average Nigerian.

I will give an example; when the Oba of Lagos said the Igbo should be thrown into the Lagoon if they don’t vote for a particular candidate, I issued a statement then as President of Aka Ikenga calling on the international community to intervene.

I don’t know whether these senators from Niger State have noticed the new trend in Cross River, Kaduna and Zamfara states where if you criticise a governor, you will be arrested. In Cross River State, a journalist is facing trial, in Kaduna State, a lecturer was arrested and I understand that after he was granted bail, he was sacked.

In Niger State, some people were arrested under some nebulous law that you can’t criticise a civil servant. Is this the destination, we were promised in 2015? Definitely not. I think we are retrogressing; this senator copied word for word the law in a Muslim country and wants it to be implemented in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious Nigeria? When Buhari took over in 1983, he did everything to curtail our freedom of speech and expression under Decree 4.

Remember what he said in that Decree 4, whether true or false, as long as the government is embarrassed, that you are guilty. Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor paid the price, what they published was true, yet they went to jail. Nearly 40 years later somebody is asking us to go back to that era, that is stupid.

Where do you draw the line when one man’s freedom of speech and expression threatens another’s freedom to right of privacy and dignity of human person for example?

The constitution has taken care of all those things. The freedom of expression is the bulwark of any democracy.  Where your freedom ends, mine begins, if you cross the limit, it can be called libel or the general name of defamation; if it is oral, it will be called slander. Defamation is not a crime.

They have chosen to forget what the Appeal Court said in Author Nwankwo vs the State that the law of defamation is a relic of colonialism and has no place in Nigeria. That judgement has not been overruled. I advise anybody who is charged before any court to cite that judgement.

From the time we gained independence from Britain, people were free to express themselves. It was when the military came, and the worst of the military regimes were Gen. Sani Abacha and Gen.

Buhari who curtailed our freedom of expression. It is unfortunate that in the year of our Lord 2019, a senator wants to revive the era when we had no freedom of expression.