THE HATE SPEECHES BILL 2019: A Proposed Law from the stable of an unintelligent Senator. (By Kay Aderibigbe)

THE HATE SPEECH BILL 2019: A Proposed Law from the stable of an unintelligent Senator.
(By Kay Aderibigbe)

It does not surprise me when I heard that one senator Aliyu Sabi Abdulahi, representing Northern Niger District sponsored the "National Commission for the Prohibition of Hate Speeches Bill 2019". The same man did try to do the same thing during the 8th National Assembly, but he failed due to the philosophical and ideological differences between the Executive and the leadership of the Legislative arm between the years 2015 and 2019. This man, with the brigade of his APC majoritarianism, haven formed rubber-stamp parliamentarians, thought they could just fabricate any law without reading the pulse of the society the law is meant for.

This write-up is meant to extrapolate from three perspectives, the fundamental problems whose resultant effect is usually a type of socio-political anomaly like the Hate Speech Bill. One, from the viewpoint of display of lack of jurisprudential knowledge by the sponsor of the bill. Two, from the angle of irresponsible leadership in Nigeria. Three, from the dimension of disarticulated and faulty political culture.

Let us consider the first perspective. It is obvious that the senator who introduced the obnoxious bill is quite unintelligent when it comes to lawmaking. Here is a copy of part of what the Hate Speech Bill says ... "a person who uses, publishes, presents, produces, plays, provided, distributes, and/ or directs the performance of any material written and or visual which is threatening, abusive or insulting or involves the use of threatening , abusive or insulting words or behaviour commits an offense if such person intends thereby to stir up ethnic hatred, or having regard for all the circumstances, ethnic hatred is likely to be stirred up against any person or persons from such an ethnic group in Nigeria".

Section 4(2) of the bill provides that any person found to have committed this offense shall be liable to life imprisonment and where the act causes any loss of life, the person shall be punished through death by hanging.

Some important questions could be deduced from the above proposed law. (i) What wordings connote or constitute hate speech? (ii) How do we identify who has the intention to stir up ethnic hatred? (iii) How do we determine which scenario was meant to stir up ethnic hatred or the one that was hijacked by villains? (iv) For instance, what happens when an alleged hate speech offender claimed his/her social media account was hacked (v) How do we carry out a forensic analysis in order to differentiate an innocent citizen whose online account was hacked from the real offender?. Unless senator Sabi and his colleagues can convincingly answer the above questions they simply, respectfully, remain an unintelligent set of people and should cover their faces in shame.

The majority of the 9th Assembly lawmakers were among those that promulgated the Cyber Crime Law 2015. The law is so defective to the extent that law enforcement agencies could not resolve so many cybercrime cases due to the technological backwardness of Nigeria. As a result of this, many innocent Nigerians are behind the bars suffering in the name of haphazardly constructed legislative enactment, while our jaundiced judicial system could not help their lot either. The same fate awaits majority of Nigerians the moment the senate accepts to bundle in the Hate Speech Bill into Law.

The second perspective will reveal that the tragedy of leadership in Nigeria is such a dismal type. This is because majority of those in position of authority do not see power as a tool for the management of collective social trust, but rather, as a means to attaining personal goals. If life imprisonment or death sentence is deemed appropriate for those who voice out their frustrations against misgovernance or injustice, how come the same punishment cannot be applied in the case of politicians who cause ethnic hatred and get many Nigerians killed at every election?

The same senators that are caught in the web of political dance of macabre also failed to pronounce death penalty for the looters of state treasury. How do we explain the cancerous corruption that is flowing in the bloodstream of an average Nigerian politician? These senators are also bereft of ideas when we raise the issue of insecurity that has torn the socio-cultural fabrics of Nigeria into pieces. They failed to rejuvenate the economy. They failed in addressing the issue of poverty. The aforementioned dynamics of failure summarized the irresponsibility on the path of leadership in Nigeria.

Invariably, the same monumental failures highlighted above could be said to be the harbinger of the hate speeches these empty head senators are legislating about. If Nigerians are gainfully employed in their large numbers and politicians are not obsessed with stealing or neglecting their responsibilities we will definitely have less to talk about on the issue of hate speech. "It is only in the slavocratic era, with irresponsible leadership, that lawmakers are worried about what people will think or say. What the people will do, eat, use and become is the concern of the contemporary governments in modern time".

The last lens with which we want to look at the Hate Speech Bill is that of disarticulated political culture. What is political culture? This is the set of attitudes orientations and beliefs which give order and meaning to the process of politics and which provides the guidelines that govern behaviour in a political system. The type of culture of politics in Nigeria is incapable of definition. This is due to economic determinism of the people which is both religiously inclined and socially incongruent. In the same vein, many Nigerians are parochial and nation-based, as against the advance societal norm of being participatory and state-oriented.

The man who brought the Hate Speech Bill to the Senate is an example of a parochial citizen; a product of dysfunctional political culture. He is narrow-minded. He is more of a selfist than a nationalist. He is just a 'legislative contractor'; one who must have been motivated by the proceeds (monetary gains) of such a draconian piece of law. Why do we need a commission for Hate Speech? Why must there be offices for the commission across the nation? If the man is truly an apostle of ethnic unification in this country he wouldn't be pushing for a law that will victimize the common man, the press, opinion leaders and especially, the social media, which in the recent time, has become the voice of the voiceless in a country where rulers claimed not to hear what the people are saying.

It is only in a disarticulated political society where unintelligent and irresponsible rulers are in charge that you get to hear about something like hate speech bill in the 21 century.