2023 and sloppy law of Nigerian politics

The Fulani intelligentsia have crafted the most fragile sloppy political law for all heavyweight champions whose eyes are fixed on the 2023 goal post. The law is unwritten and it’s a mind game.

The economy is taken, security gone and the media has become  the battlefield knowing full well it is controlled by the South (in the hands of some contenders) and is  potent missile for political victory.

They understand all the tricks of the trade like the back of their hands and invent many new ones their rivals never see coming.

While many boast loud and long about playing the game of politics, they create new game for them to play. They have mastered the political craft like chess game designed to box opponents into a corner by slowly and steadily clipping their wings.

In other words, it is no coincidence that the dead and buried ‘Social Media Bill’ of the last National Assembly resurfaced. Every student of Nigerian politics should be good at spotting a pattern that is the ultimate weapon of the sloppy law framers. To use a cliché, “the rest is history”.

Those who make the loudest noise are useful tools for the battlefields. But the diplomatic missions, the level-headed and reserved are most sought after. 2023 interest has put the wailers, the plotters and the decision makers on a meal table.

The Social Media Bill is the biggest joke ever cracked in the history of Nigerian politics. The idea is a joke, passing first reading is a bigger joke then defending the bill is 2023 politics taken to the extreme. It defies logic that a government laced with renowned pressmen and which rode to power via the instrumentality of the media would suddenly change the goal post in the middle of the game.

The bill is a duplication of the Cybercrime Act that has the hate speech aspect in it. Section 4 subsection 2 of the Cybercrime Act has almost the same wordings with the bill. Fake news is bad, hate speech is condemnable, slamming defaulters with capital punishment like death by hanging is a hug to fascism. It is also digital totalitarianism and tyranny at its peak in a country where many who are indicted of corruption are treated like sacred cows.

Death by hanging at a time the world is moving away from capital punishment is retrogressive governance. The bill is designed to silence criticism of the authorities via social media interventions. It is a well thought-out graph plotted to criminalise dissenting voices. Even the government is not free from the bill.

In a nation where corruption reigns supreme, creating hate speech agency is a waste of resources as their job description will be laughable.

As the clock of the years prepares to strike 60 for Nigeria, the world expects a boom in her economy, massive job creation, good standard of living for her citizenry, reduced insecurity, standard electoral reforms and corruption-free system. This global expectation is the core.

Ikechukwu Agada,

Abuja