By Ishaya Ibrahim
A coalition of civil society groups under the auspices of Action Group on Free Civic Space, has asked the Nigerian Senate to throw away the anti-social media bill whose objective it said is to stifle the constitutionally guaranteed rights of Nigerians to express themselves.
The Senate has fixed Monday, March 9, for the public hearing where Nigerians are expected to express their views on the bill.
The bill, Protection from Internet Falsehoods, Manipulations and other related matters was sponsored by Mohammed Sani Musa, a Senator representing Niger state.
A statement signed by Victoria Ohaeri on behalf of the Action Group on Free Civic Space, noted that provisions of the bill have enormous potential to not only stifle constitutional freedoms, but also crush civil liberties.
“The Social Media Bill (SMB) contains provisions that run contrary to the constitutionally guaranteed free speech and fair comment protected under national laws.
“The SMB reproduces rules and regulations already covered by existing laws like the Cybercrime Act 2015, Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2011, Penal Code, National Human Rights Commission Act, etc
“Numerous law enforcement mechanisms for curbing cybercrimes exist, there is no need to replicate these functions.
“The language used in framing offenses is over-broad with the potential to criminalize vast swaths of honest expressions, services and conducts,” the statement said, adding that an honest expression during a social discourse can be easily stretched to come under the ambit of the stipulated offenses.
The coalition said the bill is unnecessary as the government already has a number of law enforcement agencies that are statutorily mandated to tackle cybercrime related offenses.
According to the statement, some of the law enforcement agencies include; Cybercrime Advisory Council, National Computer Forensic Laboratory, National Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Centre and the National Human Rights Commission.
“Instead of enacting new laws and creating new mechanisms with overlapping regulatory functions, we advocate for the capacities of existing law enforcement agencies to be strengthened by equipping them with adequate and necessary infrastructure and resources to carry out their mandate,” the statement said.
The statement noted that Nigeria’s civic space is rapidly shrinking as revealed by a database on www.closingspaces.org.
“There are 279 cases of clampdown of human freedoms in Nigeria from 2015 till date, with 75 incidences recorded of journalists arrested and assaulted on account of their journalistic duties, nine media houses attacked for publishing and airing content critical and exposing of government activities, 21 activists and 20 internet users arrested for expressing dissenting and critical opinions of government’s activities on their social media platforms,” the statement said.