₦airaland Forum

Head of the Department of Mass Communication, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, UNN, Dr Edith Ugochi Ohaja, has described the proposed bill seeking to place death penalty on anyone convicted of hate speech as a time bomb on the journalism profession in Nigeria.

Ohaja said she could not believe that the National Assembly is deliberating on a bill that provides for capital punishment for the expression of opinions, and described it as a total misplacement of priorities.

Speaking to our reporter, she challenged Journalists in Nigeria to rise up to the occasion and prove that the ever vibrant Nigerian Mass Media that stood firm during the Gen. Sani Abacha led military regime is still alive to defend justice, truth and human rights.

She said: "This is a country where rampaging herdsmen, bandits, kidnappers and terrorists seem to be treated with kid gloves. One would have called this a misplacement of priorities if the move wasn't so sinister and it speaks to the baseness of the current National Assembly.

"By reviving this bill and seeking to set up a whole agency for so-called hate speech, the government is no longer hiding its dictatorial inclinations.

"Besides the social media, blogs and citizen journalism websites, the traditional media remain the platforms for publicising people's expressions of opinions and helping them to gain traction. So they will be prime targets or those whose views are publicised in them will be.

"I don't know the full provisions of the bill but I imagine there will be punitive fines against corporate bodies, like the media, that are seen as fora for the dissemination of "hate speech".

"The sad thing in Nigeria is that the media have not been robust enough in withstanding the tyranny of the present regime. Perhaps, the revival of this bill will serve as a wakeup call to them that the government is trampling on everyone's rights and eroding freedom of the press.

"In fact, this might be the time for the media to redeem their image by championing the resistance against this kind of move and other obnoxious policies of this government.

"In the time of Abacha, they did it. Hopefully the recent years of questionable democracy have not turned them into a hopelessly complacent and conniving lot."

Speaking further, Ohaja said, "The level of ineptitude, sectionalism and other multifarious failings of the government are constantly drawing public ire and that is why the government is desperate to muzzle free expression of ideas and opinions.

"And the hypocrisy is glaring because it is the executive arm of government and the judiciary it has kept under its thumb that will decide what is hate speech and who to prosecute.

"Nigerians from all walks of life and all levels of society should resist the passage of this bill because it will kill what is left of our fledgling democracy."

Source: https://abacityblog.com/2019/11/13/hate-speech-bill-dangerous-to-journalism-profession-ohaja/

Then journalists should learn to break news without hate and sentiments

Officialgarri:
Then journalists should learn to break news without hate and sentiments

What u just said made absolutely no sense. Infact its nonsense. What is wrong is wrong. So for speaking contrary to APC govt, the next thing is to kill the person? Is it not hate speech that brought this present administration to power?

crazygod:
What u just said made absolutely no sense. Infact its nonsense. What is wrong is wrong. So for speaking contrary to APC govt, the next thing is to kill the person? Is it not hate speech that brought this present administration to power?

..it is you that is not making any sense.. Do you think we live in animal kingdom?where anyone behaves and do things the way he or she likes?..just because you don't like the present administration doesn't mean you should allow hatred consume your sense of reasoning..

crazygod:
What u just said made absolutely no sense. Infact its nonsense. What is wrong is wrong. So for speaking contrary to APC govt, the next thing is to kill the person? Is it not hate speech that brought this present administration to power?

A normal human being with senses would know that what I wrote up there is a simple and good idea.

Why drag APC into the matter. If PDP becomes the ruling party, will the bill be reversed?
This is not animal kingdom where everyone does as he wishes.
That's anarchy.

360degreess:
..it is you that is not making any sense.. Do you think we live in animal kingdom?where anyone behaves and do things the way he or she likes?..just because you don't like the present administration doesn't mean you should allow hatred consume your sense of reasoning..

Y didn't u people think this way b4 the present administration came in? U know very well what they plan to use this evil bill to do. Simply to silence any type of opposition no matter how little. Its like the saying goes, if your conscience is clear and you are working without any form of biased intentions, y fear anything the opposition says? It is only this kind of evil archaic government that will even think of bringing the idea of such bill.

Officialgarri:
A normal human being with senses would know that what I wrote up there is a simple and good idea.

Why drag APC into the matter. If PDP becomes the ruling party, will the bill be reversed?
This is not animal kingdom where everyone does as he wishes.
That's anarchy.

No its not an animal kingdom but its turning out to be like that popular novel "the animal farm". Read it up if u have the chance.

We can't hide under canopy of freedom of speech and allows things to fall parts. Many journalists are just parts of our problems, many of them just talk without reasoning. Their radio and TV programmes are full of sentiments and biases. Many of them don't know anything about investigative journalism, most of their broadcasts are just copy and paste from social medias; and the worst part of it is that many of them are not intelligent enough to identify fake news or apply common sense where necessary before broadcasts. After they broadcasts fake news, they will then come back to apologise that they didn't know it was fake news. Many of the are only eloquent, but not wise in real sense. The bill should come out to put check to all these rubbish

crazygod:
No its not an animal kingdom but its turning out to be like that popular novel "the animal farm". Read it up if u have the chance.

You might be a kid when I read animal farm