A senior lawyer, Afe Babalola, has described the hate speech bill
still receiving legislative attention in the Senate, as a slide into
dictatorship.
Babalola, the proprietor of Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti
(ABUAD), said it was unwarranted for anyone to contemplate another law
to deal with false publications ”when there were laws already
promulgated to take care of such situations”.
The bill, sponsored by the Deputy Chief Whip, Aliyu Abdullahi, has
passed the first reading at the Senate.
The bill also prescribes the death penalty for anyone found guilty of
spreading a falsehood that leads to the death of another person.
Online medium, Premium Times reported how dozens of protesters on
Wednesday marched to the National Assembly gate to ask the Senate to
drop the bill and another seeking to regulate social media.
The two senators who addressed the protesters pledged that despite the
bill being sponsored by their colleague, the Senate would do the
bidding of Nigerians.
Mr Babalola spoke at ABUAD yesterday, when the leadership of Nigeria
Union of Journalists (NUJ), Ekiti chapter, led by its Chairman, Rotimi
Ojomoyela, met with him in his office.
They had presented an award of excellence to him to appreciate ”his
contributions to humanity and national development”.
According to him, “the provisions of the proposed bill in its entirety
clearly contravenes section 39 of the 1999 Constitution, which
guarantees freedom of speech”.
“This is the beginning of dictatorship. There are enough laws like
defamation, libel and slander to deal with anybody who publishes
falsehood against someone and it comes by way of taking the person to
court,” he said.
“So, there is no need to make new laws to deal with somebody who
publishes falsehood. There was no need whatsoever for additional laws
to deal with that.
“People are complaining because the police are not doing well by
delaying the prosecution of offenders.”
Babalola also stated that with the current intimidation of judges,
”nothing good could come of the justice sector”.
“The Department of State Services did irreparable damage to courts the
very day houses of judges were ransacked at night because no judge
will give judgement against a government when he has the impression
that his house will be searched at night,” he stated.
He also urged the federal government to focus attention on the
rehabilitation of the dilapidating federal roads in Ekiti.
“Ekiti has four major federal roads: Ado-Ijan-Ikare, Ado-Ikere-Akure,
Ado-Otun, and Ado-Aramoko-Efon, bad enough. All of them are in bad
shape. Some have even cut off like the one at Erio,” he added.
