Senate proposes 2-year jail for offenders of abusive statements on social media
Category: Nigerian National News
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A bill seeking a two-year jail term for any person who makes
allegation or publishes any statement or petition in the newspaper,
radio or medium of whatever description against another person,
institutions of government or any public office holder, passed second
reading in the Senate, yesterday.
The bill also prescribed that anybody or group of persons who send
any false text message or post false message on the social media against
another person shall be jailed for two years upon conviction by the law
court.
The bill, tagged: “A Bill for an Act to Prohibit Frivolous Petitions and
other Matters Connected therewith”, sponsored by Senator Ibn Na’Allah,
APC, Kebbi South, compels petitioners to accompany their petitions with
sworn court affidavit, failure of which attracts a six- month
imprisonment upon conviction.
But the bill provides for an option of N4 million for persons
convicted of false newspaper, radio and television statements and N2
million for offenders of false phone text messages or messages on
Facebook, twitter, Instagram, or WhatsApp.
“Where any person in order to circumvent this law makes any
allegation and or publish any statement, petition in any paper, radio,
or any medium of whatever description, with malicious intent to
discredit or set the public against any person or group 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 N4,000,000.00”,the bill specified.
On the social media, the bill read: “Where any person through text
message, 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 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 two years or a fine
of N2,000,000.00 or both fine and imprisonment.”
The bill said it shall be an offence for any petition to be submitted without a sworn affidavit from the law court.
“Not withstanding anything contained in any law, it shall be an unlawful
to submit any petition, statement intended to report the conduct of any
person for the purpose of an investigation, inquiry and or inquest
without a duly sworn affidavit in the High Court of a state or the
Federal High Court confirming the content to be true and correct and in
accordance with the Oaths Act.
“Any petition and or complains not accompanied by a sworn affidavit
shall be incompetent and shall not be used by any government
institution, agency or bodies established by any law for the time being
enforced in Nigeria.
“Any person who unlawfully uses, publish or cause to be published any
petition, complaint not supported by a dully sworn affidavit shall be
deemed to have committed an offence and upon conviction, shall be liable
to an imprisonment for six months without an option of fine.
“Any person who acts, uses, or cause to be used any petition or
complaints not accompanied by dully sworn affidavit shall be deemed to
have committed an offence and upon conviction, shall be liable to an
imprisonment for a term of two years or a fine of N200,000.00 or both,
“the petition read.
Senator Na’Allah, in his lead debate, during the plenary, where he
sought support for accelerated consideration of the bill, said: “Our
past has portrayed us as a society where by mere expedience of writing a
frivolous petition against public officials, you can have their right
abused by taking certain measures that practically took away their right
of presumptions of innocence only to be found later that the petition,
as strong as it appears, on the paper actually lacks merit.”
“This sometimes, lead to a lot of innocent and most times honest
civil servants being taken away from the public service only to be
replaced by the dishonest ones, which invariably lead to the draining of
the public service of civil servants with the desired integrity to move
this country forward simply on grounds of principles.
“As a nation with strong desire to move forward, this negative trend
must be reversed, if only the desired objectives of the country,” he
stressed. He added: “the bill which appears ‘sunset’ in its nature
consists of four sections which in clear terms spelt out the punishment
for frivolous petition, and what constitutes frivolous petition.
“The bill seeks to provide punishment for frivolous petitions by
making sure that only credible and. Verifiable petitions are presented
for public use. “The utility of the bill is to equally save the time for
good governance and resources that go into investigating frivolus
petitions.The bill would equally assist in shaping our negative thinking
by elevating hard work over and above sychophancy and indolence,”he
further explained.
“The question to ask is, whether having passed the Freedom of
Information Act which gives unfettered access by the public information
from government offices they would be right for this government to
continue to waste valuable time and resources in investigating frivolous
petitions from the same public and I am sure you would find no
difficulty in saying no to the ugly situation,”he stressed, while
soliciting support for its consideration.
Souce: Vanguard
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