The spokesperson of the Senate, Sabi Abdullahi, has explained why a penalty of death sentence was included in the Bill introduced for the establishment of Independent National Commission for Hate Speeches.
The proposed Commission would enforce hate speech laws across the country, and ensure the “elimination” of hate speech, the Bill says.
The Bill, which has passed second reading at the Senate, prescribed death by hanging for any person found guilty of any form of hate speech that results in the death of another person.
Since the introducton of the Bill, Nigerians have raised doubts on its intention. They argued that the Bill was intended to hunt down critics of the government. Prominent in the voices was that of a former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, who accused Muhammadu Buhari, the President of Nigeria, of turning Nigeria to a North Korea.
An ardent critic of the APC administration, Fani-Kayode flayeds the Bill on his Twitter Handle.
“Now they want to pass a law that prescribes the death penalty for calling a demon a demon,” he wrote.
“They call it “hate speech” because they “hate it” when we call a spade a spade, tell them what they are and expose their barbarity. Buhari wants Nigeria to be like North Korea. He hates free speech!”
Speaking to Premium Times, Abdullahi disagreed with the critics. Instead, he explained that the Bill had slated some processes, which must be exhausted, before a person is subjected to the maximum punishment.
Contrary to public view that the Bill provided that ‘all persons who make hate speeches would die by hanging’, the Senate spokesperson said that the penalty was only for those who are found guilty of any form of hate speech that resulted in the death of another person after judicial processes in a Federal High Court.
“The issue there is that why not death penalty when you are responsible for deaths of other people? After all, our present law says if you do anything that resulted in the death of another person and it was proven beyond reasonable doubt that you caused the death of that person, the penalty is death by hanging.
“It is very clear. It has to be proven that there was hate speech. It has to be proven that the hate speech led to the death of that person. There is a condition that it has to be proven beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law. The jurisdiction of the Bill is the Federal High Court.”
Abdullahi said that those who are criticising the Bill are doing so, because they haven’t experienced loss of a relative to violence instigated by hate speech.
“People who may be having some opposing views about it definitely are not in the category of people who have lost dear ones and family or livelihood to similar circumstances. If they are, I think they will be saying how I wish this was in place before this thing happened to me.”
