At a latest public occasion the place he represented his principal, Chief of Workers to the president, Femi Gbajabiamila, used the chance to retrieve the hackneyed matter of social media laws. Whereas he famous the bid failed whereas he was the Speaker of the Home of Representatives, he didn’t point out that any new growth had since emerged since Nigerians spiritedly resisted the Invoice, which had given him a greater perspective. So why convey up the subject once more? He will need to have lacked helpful issues to say. In sensationally describing social media as a “social menace,” Gbajabiamila gave himself away as the true menace to society that should be regulated by the pressure of public vigilance.
Frequent to Gbajabiamila and people who echo his line of thought is how they by some means overlook all the intense points that imperil our society and nil on social media as the final word harmful pressure. It doesn’t matter what financial tensions Nigerians grapple with and the potential for such agony to gasoline social restlessness, these head-in-the-sand observers nonetheless preserve their monomania. They routinely scapegoat social media, apprehending the “hate speech” on social media whereas the whole lot of their administrative procedures boils all the way down to “hate acts” towards Nigerians. If Gbajabiamila just isn’t bored with this con recreation, we’re bored. It’s excessive time he discovered us a extra participating ruse.
Numerous varieties of individuals despise social media in Nigeria. Some, like Bishop David Oyedepo who thinks social media is a future stealer, are these of the older era who usually look down on virtually something involving younger folks. However then the political/elite class are additionally caught on social media laws. These are those who ascribe all of the evils that may presumably occur inside an ill-governed society to what social media can precipitate. Their actual worry is that what constitutes their as soon as unquestioned and even unquestionable constituted authority now faces common bringdown from social media customers.
Gbajabiamila ought to inform us why we even want new guidelines when there are already repercussions for what folks say on-line. Aside from extant legal guidelines on defamation and slander, social media commentary is one side the place the repressiveness of our authorities serially is exemplified. Recall the instance of the random younger man who made enjoyable of ex-first girl Aisha Buhari’s weight on Twitter? The police laid in watch for about six months simply to ensnare and incarcerate him.
Then there was the case of the lady who reviewed a model of tomato paste on social media. The police didn’t solely harass that poor girl, they nonetheless returned to her dwelling months later to put a siege. When has it ever occurred on this nation that the police would spend such prolonged hours battling criminals? However they may deploy that a lot pressure over a lady who expressed her opinion. No affordable particular person will take into account such a propensity for abuse and nonetheless help social media laws.
These advocating social media laws have by no means fairly demonstrated that they’ve thought by way of the unbelievable complexity of the terminologies. As an illustration, they scream about “faux information” however what wouldn’t it imply beneath these legal guidelines? Would “faux information” legal guidelines have jailed presidential aide Ajuri Ngelale, who introduced that the United Arab Emirates had lifted its visa ban on Nigerians as a result of president’s intervention? Ngelale didn’t resign when the story turned out to be faux and the sky didn’t fall both.
Aside from the complexity of language can also be the intricacy of expertise and the experience that can be essential to implement laws throughout the huge world communication community reductively referred to as “social media.” This deficiency was plainly demonstrated when the Buhari administration banned Twitter and it turned out that individuals may simply bypass the ban with VPN. Shamefaced, they reversed their ban. To avoid wasting face, they cooked up tales of tax remittance negotiations with Twitter, Inc. when elections loomed and so they wanted their assault hounds to return to social media.
Once more, calling for social media laws overlooks the continued efforts of varied Nigerian media organisations that battle falsehoods circulated on-line. Take the net newspaper, The Cable, as an example. Their group not solely problem some faux tales, however they even accomplish that in a number of non-English Nigerian languages. As an alternative of attempting to make new legal guidelines, why not increase such initiatives?
This isn’t to downplay the tendency for social media alternate to overwhelm and even flip into bullying. To an extent, social media—like some other media kind—can actually be used to trigger havoc. Its democratic construction that options a number of gateways with out barely any gatekeepers supplies nodal factors from which mischief might be sprung. However all that fixation with what may go incorrect overlooks the multitude of issues that go proper. The place would Nigerian common tradition be right this moment with out the driving pressure of social media? Can we extricate the recognition that Nigerian music stars have achieved from the actions of Nigerian youth on social media?
A number of the advocates for social media laws say it’s essential to curtail the excessiveness of those that get carried away by the liberty of that house and slip the borders of what needs to be ideally permissible. However it’s by way of the identical excessiveness that some folks routinely condemn because the evils of social media that Nigerians promoted Hilda Baci into a world star, passionately supported their soccer group at AFCON, and repeatedly advocated for his or her fellow Nigerians even when it took wrestling different overseas nationals to the bottom within the course of. Why take away all of the spontaneity and vivacity of social interactions inside that house all since you are obsessive about fixing what just isn’t damaged? In addition to, what is that this Nigerian tendency to wish to punish, punish, and simply punish?!
Maybe Gbajabiamila would even have been price taking severely if he had spoken on these points throughout some key factors in our nationwide historical past. For a person who was the Speaker throughout the administration of probably the most incompetent and corrupt authorities in Nigerian historical past, it quantities to an absence of introspection to explain modern actuality as dwelling in a “post-truth” world? Actually? For Nigerians, the ideological manipulation of “post-truth” is basically a fallout of the shortage of integrity in governance.
Our model of “post-truth” is instantiated when the federal government phases a rice pyramid for photo-ops to deceive the world that its agricultural insurance policies have labored whereas the market costs of these meals objects spiral uncontrolled. “Submit-truth” is when the federal government borrows an plane to launch an airline. Gbajabiamila forgets that it was the denizens of social media who busted the official lies inside mere hours of that “faux” launch. He was the Speaker whereas the Muhammadu Buhari regime deployed these deception methods straight out of the North Korean regime playbook, however the place was he?
This time final yr, Nigeria confronted one other divisive election. Individuals on social media, egged on by sure political associates now working for a similar administration as Gbajabiamila and different social media influencers, slung vicious mud at one different. I don’t recall Gbajabiamila intervening to douse the strain. However right this moment, after their elections have been safely gained, he mounts the pulpit to perorate on the hazards of a world the place feelings rule over purpose. So is it simply now that he simply observed that “our politics is fuelled by emotive arguments” or that “goal information are much less influential in shaping public opinion that attraction to id and private perception”? The place would he even be right this moment with out that sort of politics?
If he actually believes in what he’s saying, then I problem him to repeat that speech in 2026 when his political associates will expectedly be stirring the ethnic and non secular pots once more simply to allow them to win a second time period.