By Emmanuel Onwubiko.
The
current ninth National Assembly right from inception has traveled from one
journey of insanity and incomparable infamy to another and seems to be in a
race against time to become the most anti- people session of virtually all the
sessions of the National Assembly that have come and gone since 1999 that
democracy re-emerged on the political climate of Nigeria.
First
and foremost, the opaque circumstances that facilitated the emergence of the
current leadership of the National Assembly with cocktails of allegations of
bribery, financial inducements for votes and of the external interferences of
the office of the Nigerian President, have compelled the widening specter of
the groundswell of suspicions from across the entire spectrum of Nigerians who
are expressing the deep rooted fear that the current leadership of the Ninth
National Assembly is in no way independent.
Ironically,
both the speaker of the federal House of Representatives Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila
and the Senate President Dr. Ahmed Lawan are not ashamed to Identify themselves
as dyed-in-the wool loyalists of President Muhammadu Buhari even when the
relevant sections of the constitution such as Sections 4, 5 and 6 had clearly
delineated the respective powers/functions of all the arms of government and
created the constitutional threshold of checks and balances.
In
the sense of these provisions of the constitution, none of the three arms of
government should be subservient to each other even when they are expected to
identify areas of common interest in order to advance public interests. Such
commonality of interests which should coalesce into the service of the public
good should not necessarily expose one of the arms to the overwhelming control
of the other.
The
senate president Dr. Ahmed Lawan of All Progressives Congress from Yobe state
who has spent nearly two decades in the National Assembly had provided ample
ammunitions to the critics who dismissed the Ninth National Assembly as
rubber-stamped of the executive branch of government when at a recent public
function he was seen stating that the National Assembly will pass all requests
to it by President Muhammadu Buhari because in his warped imagination, our
President means well for Nigeria.
And
then, the speaker of the federal House of Representatives Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila
of All Progressives Congress from Surulere Lagos was to add salt into injury by
stating that there is nothing wrong if the National Assembly become active
subservient partner at all times with the presidency because they were not
elected to fight the president.
With
the above mindset, it is therefore not a surprise that most Nigerians are not
convinced about the altruism and patriotism of the actions coming out of the
National Assembly under the current dispensation.
A major
dispute raging on the sinister plot of
some senators to railroad into legislation certain naturally undemocratic and
unconstitutional bills which in effect will shut the media space and impede the
enjoyment of media freedoms, is understandable.
One
of such bills seeks to establish an agency of the federal government to
penalize Nigerians who are deemed to have committed what they called use of
hate speech and hate crimes.
The
craziest of the bills is listed as “protection from internet falsehood and manipulation
and other related matters bill of 2019” sponsored by the colorless Niger state
born senator, Mr. Muhammadu Sani Musa.
Already
the senate committee on judiciary, Human rights and legal matters had
circulated a commercial invitation asking Nigerians to attend a public hearing
on Monday 9th March 2020 to debate the acceptability or rejection of the
aforementioned bill.
I
must state that at a recent public colloquium staged in Abuja by the African
Independent Television (AIT) on those sets of anti -social media bills, the
majority of the over 5,000 Nigerians at that hall shouted down those bills.
Nigerians
were of the view that those bills were not only obnoxious and toxic but are
absolutely unconstitutional and undemocratic even as other Nigerians think
likely that certain or all the suggested provisions in those highly toxic bills
are offenses already created in extant statutes just as they wonder why the
National Assembly plans to duplicate laws that are already scattered in a
plethora of provisions of the laws and statutes.
I
patiently read through the bill on the so-called 'protection from internet
falsehood and manipulation and other related matters bill of 2019', but I
noticed that the aim and objective of this bill is not to protect National
interests or public good but the bill is simply disguised to muzzle freedom of
online rights to expression.
Also,
the bill is not necessary since there is already in place the anti-cybercrime
Act of 2015 whose provisions are even draconian and undemocratic.
The
bill if passed into law is a sophisticated form of autocratic rule in which the
freedoms of speech in any form would be imperiled and section 39 of the
constitution as well as section 22 and all other fundamental rights provisions
contained in chapter 4 of the Nigerian constitution would be endangered and
stifled. How can we have Senators elected democratically by the people who are
the owners of the sovereignty of Nigeria now colluding amongst themselves as
reactionary forces to introduce autocratic bills?
Take
a look at the aims and objective of this bill to know that it is a deliberate
effort by the pliant ninth National Assembly to enthrone fascism; autocracy and
dictatorship similar to what obtains in Russia under President Vladimir Putin.
I
will make a detour to explain how this bill will turn Nigeria into President
Putin’s Russia or communist china under President Xi Jinping whereby all the
democratic rights of the citizens are muzzled and effectively put at the whims
and caprices of the all-knowing political elites.
But
first, let us see the aims and objectives of the bill which the sponsor senator
Muhammed Sani Musa said is meant to protect them from internet falsehood and
manipulation and for which they ignorantly failed to acknowledge the existence
of the strong cybercrime prevention Act of 2015.
The
Aims and objectives of this Act are: 1.(a) to prevent the transmission of false
statements/declaration of facts in Nigeria and to enable measures to be taken
to counter the effects of such transmission; (b) to suppress the financing,
promotion and other support of online locations that repeatedly transmit false
statements/declaration of facts in Nigeria; (c) to enable measures to be taken
to detect, control and safeguard against coordinated inauthentic behavior and other
misuses of online accounts and bots; and (d) to enable measures to be taken to
enhance disclosure of information concerning paid content directed towards a
Political end. (e) to sanction offenders; 2. The provisions of this Act shall
apply throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
In
part 2 of the bill; (1) A person must not do any act in or outside Nigeria to
transmit in Nigeria a statements knowing or having reason to believe that :-
(a) it is a false statements of fact; and (b) the transmission of the
statements in Nigeria is likely to :- (i) be prejudicial to the security of
Nigeria or any part of Nigeria; (ii) be prejudicial to public health, public
safety, public tranquility or public finances; (iii) be prejudicial to the
friendly relations of Nigeria with other countries; (iv) influence the outcome
of an election to any office in an election or a referendum; (v) incite
feelings of enmity, hatred directed to a person or ill-will between different
groups of persons; or (vi) diminish public confidence in the performance of any
duty or function of, or as it relates to ability to influence negatively any
public function, business, property or other economic interests, and can be
shown to have caused financial loss and or personal injury or collective injuries
directed at a person or entity. (2) Other online harms: These include other
online contents and activities and malicious falsehoods capable of causing harm
to individual users, particularly minors, or threatens our way of life in
Nigeria, either by undermining national security, or by reducing trust and
undermining our shared rights, responsibilities and opportunities to foster the
Country’s unity and integration. (3) Subject to sub Clause (3), a person who
contravenes sub Clause (1) shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on
conviction:- (a) in the case of an individual, to a fine not exceeding N300,000
or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years or to both; or (b) in any
other case, to a fine not exceeding N10 Million. (4) Where an inauthentic
online account or a bot is used :-(a) to transmit in Nigeria the statements
mentioned in sub Clause (1); and (b) for the purpose of accelerating such
transmission, the who person is guilty of an offence under that sub Clause
shall be liable on conviction - (c) in the case of an individual, to a fine not
exceeding N300,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years or to
both; or (d) in any other case, to a fine not exceeding N10 Million. (5) Sub
Clause (1) does not apply to the doing of any act for the Purpose of, or that
is incidental to, the provision of :- (a) an internet intermediary service; (b)
a teletransmission service; (c) a service of giving the public access to the
internet; or (d) a computing resource service.
What
any critical mind can deduce or decipher from this proposed bill is that the
current set of legislators are so intolerant of a plural society to a
hysterical extent that even what bloggers publish about Nigeria from far flung
nations have constituted a considerable threats to their exercising arbitrary
powers.
Professor
John Keane who wrote the book “The Life and Death of Democracy,” will like us
to be educated on the fundamental kernels of democracy which is the promotion
of public interests above class or clique’s interests which is what the bill is
set out to achieve.
The
book goes thus: "The Life and Death of Democracy, the first attempt to
write a life and times of democracy for well over a century, shows that the
little word democracy is much older than classical Greek commentators made
out".
Its
roots are in fact traceable to the Linear B script of the Mycenaean period,
seven to ten centuries earlier, to the late Bronze Age civilization (c.
1500-1200 BCE) that was centered on Mycenae and other urban settlements of the
Peloponnese, he submitted.
Also,
the author submitted that It is unclear exactly how and when the Mycenaean
learned to use the two-syllable word damos, to refer to a group of powerless
people who once held land in common, or three-syllable words like damokoi,
meaning an official who acts on behalf of the damos.
What
in his thinking is also unclear is whether these words, and the family of terms
we use today when speaking about democracy, have origins further EAST, for
instance in the ancient Sumerian references to the dumu, the ‘inhabitants’ or
‘sons’ or ‘children’ of a geographic place.
But
these uncertainties are tampered by another remarkable discovery by
contemporary archaeologists: it turns out that the democratic practice of
self-governing assemblies is also not a Greek innovation, he affirmed.
"The
lamp of assembly-based democracy was first lit in the ‘East’, in lands that
geographically correspond to contemporary Syria, Iraq and Iran. The custom of
popular self-government was later transported eastwards, towards the Indian
subcontinent, where sometime after 1500 BCE, in the early Vedic period,
republics governed by assemblies became uncommon. The custom also travelled
westwards, first to Phoenician cities like Byblos and Sidon, then to Athens,
where during the fifth century BCE it was claimed as something unique to the
West, as a sign of its superiority over the ‘barbarism’ of the East".
Still
on the etymology and historicity of the concept of democracy as it then was,
the author stated that like gunpowder,
print and either imports from afar, the arrival of the popular assemblies and
(later) the strange-sounding word demokratia in the region that today we call
the West radically altered the course of history.
His
words: "It is even fair to say that it made history possible. for
understood simply as people governing themselves, democracy implied something
that continues to have a radical bite: it supposed that humans could invent and
use institutions specially designed to allow them to decide for themselves, as
equals, how they would live together on earth. The whole thing may seem rather
straightforward to us, but think about it for a moment. The little dream that
carried the big thought that mere mortals could organize themselves as equals
into forums or assemblies, where they could pause to consider things, then
decide on a course of action – democracy in this sense was a spine-tingling
invention because it was in effect the first ever human form of
government."
Dan
F. Hahn, tells us lucidly in his book “Political Communication: Rhetoric, Government
and Citizen,” that laws made to limit people’s access to the enjoyment of such
fundamental human rights like freedom of speech and information, amounts to a
contempt of the people by government.
His
words: “Governmental contempt for citizens is an attitude we tend to associate
with the Russian communist experience, yet it is not clear that the attitude or
the existence of secrecy was ever any more prevalent in Moscow than in
Washington, D.C., today. And the fact that we are drawn to make this comparison
is itself ironic, for these two most secret governments have had moments when
they opted for openness. In 1917 Lenin proclaimed that the Soviet government
"abolished secret diplomacy and, for its part, expresses its firm
determination to conduct all negotiations quite openly before the whole
world".
"At
about the same time president Woodrow Wilson, in one of his Fourteen Points,
declared there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but
diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view. “How far both
countries have strayed from those announced infections!"
The
aforementioned author said further that: "From a general contempt for
citizens it is a short step to contempt for their constitutional rights".
He
then told us that recently obtained files indicate that from 1981 to 1985 the
F.B.I "ran a surveillance operation aimed at hundreds of people and
organizations opposed to Reagan Administration's policies in General
America...."
"While
the F.B.I may not have violated any law in this endeavor, it certainly
demonstrated a degree of callousness towards the rights of citizens opposed to
government policy. Indeed, it could be said that a major result of domestic
surveillance has been a diminution of freedom. Consider how many constitutional
rights are violated by surveillance: freedom of speech, freedom of assembly,
freedom of association, the right to petition the government, and the Fourth
Amendment ("the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures"). This
bill by the Nigerian Senate is set out to achieve these fascist goals.
Dan
F. Hahn said also thus: "Another outgrowth of governmental contempt of
citizens is to keep them ignorant. Of especial interest to the field of
communication is the fact that secrecy "insulates” bureaucrats and thereby
affects their subsequent pervasiveness. Obviously, those who have information
have advantages over those who do not have it.
Less
obvious, but equally important, is the effect of information in allowing
government authorities to talk as "experts" to an audience of
"uninformed citizens."
Further,
he reminds us that as communication scholar Eugene Garver points out, "the
persuasion of experts claims not to be persuasion but something else,
demonstration or instruction," which creates in the audience a feeling
"that they have no choice.... that they are bowing to necessity."
"Secrecy,
therefore, lifts its holders (government officials) to the category of "experts,"
while simultaneously lowering the audience (citizens) to the level of
"learners." The resulting relationship is hardly to be desired in a
society supposedly designed so the citizens can be the masters."
"Further,
those who held secret information can affect the societal dialogue by
selectively leaking their secrets. A bureaucrat who wants to strengthen the
secrecy apparatus, for example, could leak the "secret" that some
potential enemy country had discovered the identity of our agents in their country.
That leak might scare the Senate and House into "shoring up" secrecy
requirements. How common are such occurrences? Forty-two percent of government
officials admit they have leaked information to affect decision- making."
As I
stated earlier, there is indeed no major development that requires that
additional media law is needed to add to an over regulated media environment.
In
any event, the constitution which is supreme has guaranteed the citizens right
to freedom of expression in section 39.
In
their book “How Democracy Die: What history reveals about our future,” two
Harvard professors of Government Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt reminds us
of the supremacy of the constitution thus: “For generations, Americans have
retained great faith in their constitution, as the centerpiece of a belief that
the United States was a chosen nation, providentially guided, a beacon of hope
and possibility to the world. Although this larger vision may be fading, trust
in the Constitution remains high. A 1999 survey found 85 percent of Americans
believed the Constitution was the major reason “America had been successful
during this past century.” Indeed, our constitutional system of checks and
balances was designed to prevent leaders from concentrating and abusing power,
and for most of American history, it has succeeded.”
I
strongly maintained my claim that those sets of bills to further limit people’s
access to the social media as contemplated by some two senators in the Ninth
National Assembly, who are working hand-in-globes with the overbearing
executive arm of government, are not necessary and should be discarded.
For
the simple reason that Nigeria’s online and social media space are over
saturated with hard laws. Some of these laws are even supposed to be amended to
allow for efficiency and effectiveness of the media.
Why
introduce another law to regulate the internet when we already have the
cybercrime Act of 2015?
Recently,
I came across very beautiful summary of the cybercrime prevention Act of 2015 which
was done by Nasir and Dolapo in which they listed expertly that the extant law
has already captured offences such as child pornography with a sentence of 10
years in prison and/or a #20 million fine. The law on cybercrime has another
strong provision on identity theft with a stringent three years sentence and/or
a #7 million fine.
Still
talking about the cybercrime law and the reason why the Ahmed Lawan-led
National Assembly should discard any bills seeking to limit access to social
media or introduce the hate speech legislation, we need to know as we were
reminded by the aforementioned scholars that the cybercrime Act has an ample
provision against cyber-stalking and cyber-bullying even as the punishment is
in no way mild because it is #2 million fine and/or one year in confinement.
Dolapo
and Nasir remind us that under that law, an offender when convicted can be
fined up to #20 million or 10 years in prison sentence.
Other
notable provisions are those that permit the nation’s president to classify certain
systems, networks and information infrastructure as vital to national security
even as offences relating to endangering such national assets that leads to
fatality could result in the death penalty.
The
distribution of racially or ethnically prejudicial or violent material through
a computer system or network is prohibited. Convictions attract at least 5
year’s imprisonment and/or a minimum N10million fine just as the Internet
service providers (ISPs) are required to keep records of users’ Internet traffic
and their subscriber data, and must safeguard this information so that the
users’ constitutional right to privacy is respected.
The
above and several others are enshrined in the extant cybercrime prevention Act
which allows electronic communication to be intercepted, but only with a court
order based on reasonable grounds if it is suspected that the information is
required for a criminal investigation or proceedings.
So I
ask again, why waste legislative times, energy and public fund seeking to pass
bills that will at best duplicate the many extant laws? I will conclude by
letting Nigerians know that the media industry is already over regulated
because the media laws are many including the laws on defamation (Tort on
Defamation) and the law on sedition.
From
the Law of sedition from www.medialaws.blogspot.com: we learned that the after
cited definition for sedition is one couched by Fitzgerald J in RV. Sullivan
(1886) 11 co- cc 44. He described sedition in the following words:
“Sedition
is a crime against society, nearly allied to that of treason and it frequently
formulated as treason by a short interval… Is a comprehensive term and it
embraces all those practices, whether by word, clust or writing are calculated
to disturb the tranquility of the state and lead against person to endeavor to
subvert the Government and the Laws of the ethic”.
The
writers remind us that under the Nigeria Criminal Law, sedition is defined
under section 50 (1) of the Criminal Code (applicable to southern Nigeria; 14, (geris)
defines a seditious publication as a publication having a seditious intention.
And section 50 (2) defines seditious intention as an intention: (a). To bring
in hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against the person of the Head
of the Federal Government, the Governor of a State, or the Government or
Constitution of Nigeria or a State as by law established or against the
administration of justice in Nigeria or, (b). To incite Nigerians to attempt to
achieve regime change, through that which is than by lawfully means, or any
other matter in Nigeria as by law established, or (c). To raise discontentment
or disaffection among the inhabitants of Nigeria, or (d). To promote feelings
or ill-will and hostility between different classes of the population of
Nigeria.
The
writers stated that a computable provision can be found under section 416 of
the Northern Nigeria Penal Code Law. The section provides: “Whoever by words,
either spoken or reproduced by mechanical means or intended to be read, or by
signs or by visible representation or otherwise incites or attempts to incite
acts of disaffection against the person of, her majesty, her heirs or
successors or the person of the Governor-General or Constitution of the United
Kingdom or Nigeria or any Nigeria there of or against the ministration of
Justice in Nigeria or any regions thereof shall be punished with imprisonment
for a term which may extend to seven years or with fine or between both”.
From
the above statutory provisions, they argued powerfully that sedition can
generally be defined as any statement as representation which has the intention
to stir up treason, defame the person of the Head of State or Governor of a
State or inciting one section of the population against another.
The
objects of the law of sedition are, to induce an insurrection and stir up
opposition to the Government and bring the administration of justice into
contempt, and the very tendency of sedition is to incite the people to
insurrection and rebellion, they affirmed.
"In
a nutshell, it has the effect of: (i). Invigorating public disturbance (ii).
Ignite civic/war (iii). Cast hatred or disaffection to the government (iv).
Subvert obedience to the constitution when therefore any write-up or speech or
any means of communication, whether by sign, tapes, caricature, etc., that has
the effect of promoting any of the above, such a write-up, notwithstanding the
Constitution is sedition".
Important
aspects of law of sedition the writers of that piece found in the
aforementioned blog are that: The student must understand aspects law of
sedition: (a). Seditious conspiracy; (b). Seditious libel; (c). Seditious
speech; (d). Who may be convicted for sedition; (e). Is the law of sedition
still relevant? (f). Constitutional basis of the law of sedition. (a).
Seditious Conspiracy: - This is the agreement or plan by two or more persons,
to overthrow or put down by unlawful means or to destroy by force the
Government of the country or State. (b)On Seditious Libel they said: - This is
any communication in written form or any other permanent form which has the
intention to incite people to change the Government by unlawful means or which
advocates the overthrow of the Government by force or which advocates the destruction
of the State. (c) Also Seditious Speech accordingly is: - This is any speech
which advocates the over-throw of the government or its destruction by force.
(d)They then formulated the interrogatory who may be convicted for Sedition?
The
answered thus: "Section 51 of the Criminal Code makes the following
persons liable for sedition: Anyone who does a seditious act or takes part in
the preparation or conspires with others to commit sedition or utters seditious
words. Also liable are printers, publishes, distributors, vendors, reproducers and
importers of seditious publications. (e).
Is
the law of sedition still relevant in the present democratic dispensation? And
they respond as follows: "It has been noted that the Law was one of the
first press laws enacted by the British colonial administration in the
Protectorate of Southern Nigeria to check rising press criticism. Many
journalists and nationalists of that era were as a result jailed and newspapers
heavily fined. On the attainment of independence, therefore, the nationalists
had expected that such obnoxious laws would be expunged from the
statutes".
Further
they argued that "Indeed, some progressive judges had ruled that such laws
had no place in an independent Nigeria. But 50 years after, the law still
occupies a prominent place in the statutes. Those against the retention of the
law of sedition point out that it denies people their fundamental human rights
of free expression, violates the right to criticize government and denies the
people their right to self-determination. They argue further that the Law of
Sedition could be misused by a dictator to overreach himself thereby retarding
the growth of democracy and development."
"But
those in their words who support the retention of the Law of Sedition present a
counter argument.
Hear
them: "They argue that the law of sedition is aimed at protecting the
government and its institutions which are established by law to serve the
Nigerian people. Without such a law, acts of treason, such as incitement to
riots, destruction of public property and enthronement of anarchy could be
perpetuated by lawless people to the detriment of the State. While arguing that
the right to free expression is not absolute, they insist that such right
impose a corresponding duty on the citizens to respect constituted authority
and stay within the provisions of the law."
From
the above, it is clear to submit that any further effort to bring into bring
legislations to limit access to social media services as is being contemplated
by the Ahmed Lawan led Senate is unconstitutional, ultra vires the law and absolutely irrelevant and should be discarded as a bad bill meant to re-enact
autocracy and Tyranny in Nigeria.
*Emmanuel
Onwubiko is the Head of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria and
blogs@www.huriwanigeria.com; www.emmanuelonwubikocom;
www.thenigerianinsidernews.com; www.huriwa@blospot.com
