BREAKING: Proposed Social Media Bills was copied from Singapore

Ahmed Lawan, Nigeria's Senate President

Nigeria's contentious Social Media and Hate Speech Bills are still the talk of the town due to the likelihood of them being passed by the Senate.

The bills seek to punish Nigerians who spread misinformation and or make hate speeches in one or multiple social media platforms particularly facebook and Twitter, with death sentence should the acts result in the loss of lives.



The controversial bills are seen as yet another move by the Buhari administration to suppress free speech and as well, silence critics who dare to condemn his administration.

Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said in a recent statement, that no amount of public rage would deter the Buhari administration from pushing its plan of regulating activities of Nigerians on social medias.


Senate president Ahmed Lawan has all but confirmed that the two bills (Social Media and Hate Speech) which has currently passed through second readings in the red chamber, is sure to be approved when he said the Senate is ever ready to approve all requests coming from the president.




However, while they are still at it, it was recently uncovered that the much talked about Social Media bills were completely copied from the nation of Singapore.



This latest development was shared by a Twitter user @ishaqmasaryy (Ishaq Idris Masary). He said, "At the end of the day, the Social Media Bill was copied from Singapore word for word by Senator Sani Musa who earns N13.5million monthly for being master of plagiarism."


Documents of the bills was also shared by the user and can be viewed from the embedded tweet below.

PLAGIARISM:
At the end of the day, the Social Media Bill was copied from Singapore word for word by Senator Sani Musa who earns N13.5million monthly for being master of plagiarism #SayNoToSocialMediaBill@DrAhmadLawan @realFFK pic.twitter.com/iIHiPmvLEs

— Ishaq IDRIS masari (@ishaqmasaryy) November 23, 2019

Prominent voices in the country including Wole Soyinka have kicked against the proposed Social Media and Hate Speech Bills saying fighting misinformation and hate speech is a welcome development, but not when the rights to free speech is being threatened with death sentence.


The United Nations has also released a statement condemning the proposed bills, whilst asking the Federal Government to hold politicians responsible instead.