Ebonyi State Governor, Dave Umahi, has urged the Department
of State Services and the Nigeria Police Force to invite Nigerians making
“unsubstantiated statements” on social media capable of heating the polity.
The governor, whose state has been under attacks lately by
suspected herdsmen, said politicians making unguarded utterances on social
media were part of the reasons why total calm has not returned to the affected
communities in his state.
Umahi, a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress,
stated this on Thursday while featuring on Channels Television’s ‘Sunrise
Daily’ programme.
He said, “The level of crimes in the country is as a result
of unpatriotic acts of a lot of us. We, leaders, we come out on television and
then we speak, indict other regions, we speak against other regions, we pick on
the leader of a country and then castigate the leader of a country. There is no
patriotism at all.”
The governor, who belongs to the same party as the
President, Muhammadu Buhari, added, “The way to prevent
this thing is that if you are making unsubstantiated statements in the social
media, the police, the SSS, you should be invited to explain and this is no
politics because the country cannot fold our hands and allow people to plunge
the country into another war and this is very important.
“I was told that one of the world wars started with a family
quarrel and so if you are making a statement on social media calling it freedom
of speech, you must come to the law to substantiate it.
“What I have in the
state now should have stopped but for the politicians who are making unguarded
accusations and statements in the social media and then people outside the
state will just cash on on that and emotions will rise and the problem will
continue.”
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed,
blamed unpatriotic Nigerians for being the reason why social networking
service, Twitter, decided to make Ghana its African headquarters.
The regime of the President has in recent time sought
stiffer penalties for persons who “misuse social media”.
The Senate is currently deliberating on Protection from
Internet Falsehood and Manipulations Bill 2019 commonly known as the
anti-social media bill.
It seeks to criminalise the use of the social media in
peddling false or malicious information. It was sponsored by Senator Mohammed
Musa, a member of the President’s party, the All Progressives Congress.
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