A Coalition of civil society organisations, CSOs, has condemned the National Assembly’s refusal to shut down the anti-social media bill also known as the Protection from Internet Falsehoods and Manipulation and Other Related Matters Bill, despite strong opposition by some key players in the country.
Speaking to reporters in Abuja after one year of a public hearing on the bill at the National Assembly, the groups said the Nigerian Senate has managed to keep the bill alive to push its sinister intent to pass the document secretly.
They said Nigerians’ fundamental right that remains guaranteed under the Nigerian Constitution has been established that the proposed bill which was utterly copied from an undemocratic
Singapore, cannot be transposed to a democratic and multi-ethnic nation like Nigeria with a population that is more than forty times of Singapore.
The human rights groups further established that shutting down the internet or constricting citizens’ rights to freely express themselves can bring dire consequences upon any society, democratic or not, as was the case during the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, China, when Li Wenliang’s voice was repressed by the Chinese government for attempting to inform the Chinese people and the world about the deadly pandemic on social media.
The bill, Internet Falsehoods and Manipulation and Other Related Matters was sponsored by Senator Muhammed Sani Musa in November 2019 while on March 9, 2020, in line with the Nigerian
Senate’s procedural obligation on legislative propositions, a public hearing was held by the Senate’s Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, led by Senator Opeyemi
Bamidele, wherein the proposed bill was widely and convincingly rejected by Nigerians from
all walks of life.