3 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE SOCIAL MEDIA BILL PUBLIC HEARING

Monday, March 7th, 2015, my colleague and I ran into Senate Conference Room 022, New Building, National Assembly Complex, venue of the Frivolous Petitions Bill, 2015 (SB. 143) public hearing organized by the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights, and Legal Matters.

The Frivolous Petitions Bill, An Act To Prohibit Frivolous Petitions And Other Matters (popularly known as the Social Media Bill) is a controversial bill sponsored by Senator Bala Ibn Na’Allah of the All Progressives Congress (APC). The bill seeks to prohibit frivolous petitions intended to report the conduct of any person of an investigation, inquiry or inquest without a duly sworn affidavit. What this means is that anyone submitting a petition to the government must have an accompanying affidavit sworn in the High Court of a State or the Federal High Court.

There has been public outcry since the Bill passed the second reading on the floor of the Senate on December 8th, 2015. This is not unrelated to parts of the Bill which a cross section of Nigerians believes violate the freedom of speech of citizens. For instance, sections 3(3) and 3(4) of the Social Media Bill state as follows:


3(3) “Where any person in order to circumvent this law makes any allegation and or publishes any statement, petition in the paper, radio, or any medium of whatever description, with malicious intent to discredit or set the published against any person or groups of persons, institutions of government, he shall be guilty of an offence and upon conviction shall be liable to an imprisonment term of two years or a fine of N400, 000.00”.


3(4) “Where any person through texts, messages, tweets, WhatsApp or through any social media post any abusive statement knowing same to be false with intent to set the public against any person and/or group of persons, an institution of Government or such other bodies established by law shall be guilty of an offence and upon conviction shall be liable to an imprisonment for 2 years or a fine of N2, 000,000.00 or to both such fine and imprisonment”.

I sat through the 4-hour public hearing and below are my thoughts on it.


1) NIGERIANS ARE NOT READY TO PUT THEIR MONEY WHERE THEIR MOUTHS ARE

Call me naïve, but I expected the Senate Conference Room 022 to be filled to overflowing. Perhaps that would explain the urgency my colleague and I put in our strides as we tried to locate the venue of the hearing. In my thinking, this was the Social Media Bill hearing. This was personal to Nigerians who used various social media platforms to ventilate. Ever since the Social Media Bill became public knowledge, the hashtag #NoToSocialMediaBill has been trending on Twitter and other platforms. 

Imagine my shock when I pushed the door open and found just about less than 25 people in the room. This number includes caterers and representatives of various media organizations. I was stupefied. Where were the social media influencers who trended the #NoToSocialMediaBill hashtag? Where were the social commentators? Where were the concerned youths who majorly utilize the social media? Where were members of civil society groups? Where were representatives of the National Human Rights Commission? Where were representatives of vital ministries and agencies like National Communications Commission, National Orientation Agency? Where was Public Complaints Commission? Where was Nigerian Bar Association?

Where was everybody? If those screaming #NoToSocialMediaBill can’t take their engagements offline and actually interface with their representatives on the matter that is of concern to them, why do they waste their data, energy and time trending hashtags?

Prior to the hearing, civil society groups Enough Is Enough (EIENigeria) and Paradigm Initiative Nigeria (PIN) came up with an avenue for Nigerians to dial a number and vote against the bill. As at the time of writing this article, only about 2, 379 people have voted. That’s less than 1% of Nigerian Twitter users. That’s less than the number of retweets and likes most tweets get. If Nigerians don’t care enough to spend less that N10 voting against a bill they complain violates their right to free speech, why shouldn’t the Senate just go ahead and pass the bill?

At the end of it all, less than 100 people attended the Social Media Bill hearing, and I must say I was bitterly disappointed. I was disappointed because there comes a time in man’s life when he must put his money where his mouth is. It’s not enough to scream, rant and ventilate on social media. We must show that we are not just all talk and no action. We must understand that we cannot outsource our responsibilities.

Change is tough. And it’s certainly not convenient. If we must have meaningful change in Nigeria (not the APC kind), then we must own that struggle and actually do what is necessary to have it, including attending public hearings.





2) OUR REPRESENTATIVES ARE MORE INTERESTED IN REPRESENTING THEMSELVES


In a way, this isn’t breaking news. We have always known that those who claim to represent us don’t care about us. If our senators did, then the Social Media Bill should have been dead on arrival. It should never have gotten to the public hearing stage. Well, our Senators, in defense of the Social Media Bill have said that Nigerians are only protesting because they don’t ‘really understand the purpose of the bill’.


The Chairman Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Aliyu Sabi said many Nigerians misunderstand the intent of the bill. According to InformationNigeria.com, Aliyu said the bill was written ‘to protect all individuals and institutions, including journalists and social media users’.





It’s easy to buy this ‘protect all individuals and institutions…’ line except that not once during the hearing did the Distinguished Senators cite an example of how social media harms ordinary Nigerians and how the Social Media Bill will protect them. Most of the examples they gave were how false news on social media threatens their victory during elections. Senator Omo-Agege, Senator representing Delta Cental Senatorial District cited an example of a false avatar posting that he had withdrawn from the election on the eve of elections. He stated that act almost cost him the elections. Another Senator cited another instance where news had spread on social media that Senate Minority Leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio had lost at the tribunal when that wasn’t true.


See? It’s only about their interests and not about the citizens who elected them into office in the first place. One of the most revealing times during the hearing was when the Chairman of the Senate Committee, Senator David Umar asked if anyone in the room supported the bill and there was a resounding silence. The silence was such that you could have heard a pin drop. Not one hand was raised. The question I am still asking is, why carry on with a bill those you claim to represent do not support? Who is the Social Media Bill really for?

I wish I could say that those we sent to Three Arms Zone actually care about us. The truth we all know is that it has never been about the citizens. From their ridiculous budget, to their security votes, to making jokes and sexualizing women in their ‘hallowed chambers’, it has always been about the representatives and not the represented.

3) THE JUDICIARY IS NOT THE LAST HOPE OF THE COMMON MAN AND THE POLICE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND

Two commonest quotes in Nigeria are ‘the Judiciary is the last hope of the common man’ and ‘the police is your friend’. By declaring support for the Social Media Bill, the judiciary and the police have shown that they are anti-people. Let me start with the Police who is supposed to be my friend.

During the hearing, a Senator read a letter from the Inspector of Police endorsing the Social Media Bill. The Police endorsed a bill that supports gagging the people they are mandated by law to protect. How can citizens give them information on criminal activities if they require a court affidavit to do so? How can the IGP not know that the Social Media Bill will not help the Police in the discharge of their duties? How can he endorse such a bill? As if that wasn’t enough shock, Justice Clara Ogunbiyi who represented the Chief Justice of Nigeria reeled out line after line of bureaucratic walls Nigerians would have to scale through to make complaints or petition government officials if the Social Media Bill passes.

Here are a few of those hurdles:


a) A complaint must be made within 6 months of the occurrence of the event as any complaint made outside of the stipulated time limit would be dismissed.


b) A complaint may be type written or otherwise written in a legible form.


c) A complaint must be signed by the complainant and with sworn affidavit, including an address.


d) A complaint must be registered in the name of the complainant and done during official hours.





Clearly Justice Ogunbiyi doesn’t understand what freedom of speech means. Also, with all due respect to her, we already have laws that deal with libel and slander. Why waste energy supporting a bill that contravenes other existing laws and even the Whistle Blowers Act which is yet to be passed into law?

As most Nigerians have said, the Social Media Bill is a waste of time and taxpayers’ money. Among other things, it shows the glaring disconnect between our representatives and those they are supposed to represent. It should, as a matter of urgency, be thrown into the dustbin of history because no country interested in moving forward gags its people.

#NoToSocialMediaBill

XoXo
NawtiProf