On Tuesday, the senate
reintroduced the bill seeking to prohibit hate speech in the country. The bill
entitled, “National Commission for the Prohibition of Hate Speeches Bill 2019”
is being sponsored by Sabi Abdullahi, deputy majority whip of the senate.
The proposed legislation has
sparked outrage and condemnation over some of its provisions. In the previous
assembly, Abdullahi sponsored the same bill, but it did make it through to
third reading.
The current bill prescribes death
penalty for hate speech and the establishment a commission to prohibit it.
Here are some highlights of the
bill:
WHAT CONSTITUTES AN OFFENCE?
According to the bill, a person
who uses, publishes, presents, produces, plays, provided, distributes and/or
directs the performance of any material, written and or visual which is
threatening, abusive or insulting or involves the use of threatening, abusive
or insulting words or behavior commits an offence if such person intends
thereby to stir up ethnic hatred, or having regard to all the circumstances,
ethnic hatred is likely to be stirred up against any person or persons from
such an ethnic group in Nigeria.
DEATH BY HANGING
Section 4 (2) of the bill
provides that any person found to have committed this offence shall be liable
to life imprisonment and where the act causes any loss of life, the person
shall be punished through death by hanging.
Section 6 (1) provides that any
person who knowingly utters words to incite feelings of contempt, hatred,
hostility, violence or discrimination against any person, group or community on
the basis of ethnicity or race, commits an offence and shall be liable on conviction
be liable to imprisonment for a term not less than five years, or to a fine of
not less than N10 million or both.
NOT JUST INDIVIDUALS CAN BE FOUND
GUILTY
The bill says in the case of an
offence committed by a body of persons where the body of persons is a corporate
body, every director, trustee and officer of that body corporate shall also be
deemed to be guilty of that offence; and
(b) where the body of persons is
a firm, every partner of that firm shall also be deemed to be guilty of that
offence.
Going by this, the fate of
individuals in organisations are tied to their colleagues.
ESTABLISHMENT OF A COMMISSION
Section 9 (1) provides for the
establishment of a commission to be known as the Independent National
Commission for the Prohibition of Hate Speeches.
Section 9 (2) provides that the
commission shall be a body corporate with perpetual succession and a common
seal and shall, in its corporate name, be capable of
(a) Suing and being sued,
(b) Purchasing or otherwise
acquiring, holding, charging or disposing of movable and immovable property;
(c) Borrowing or lending money;
and
(d) Doing or performing all other
things or acts for the furtherance of the provision of this Act which may
lawfully be done of performed by a body corporate.
Section 10 (1) provides that the
headquarters of the commission shall be in Abuja, but the commission may
establish branch offices in each of the states of the federation in Nigeria.
The bill is not yet a law so it
cannot take effect.
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com