Fears over the likely passage of Social Media Bill and or Hate Speech Bill by the Nigerian National Assembly, has worsen following a pledge by Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, to readily approve all requests coming from the presidency.
The determination of the Buhari administration to push through its plan to regulate activities or Nigerians on social networks especially on facebook, makes Lawan's recent and aforementioned statement, all the more crucial. It simply goes without saying that the duo of the Social Media and Hate Speech Bill will be expressly passed should Buhari demands for it.
There has been no shortage of calls from different quarters demanding for the bills to be thrown out and seek an acceptable means of tackling the spread of misinformation and hate speech without suppressing freedom of expression.
In a post shared on his Facebook page, Fani Kayode said, the passage of either or both of Social Media and Hate Speech Bill will be a big mistake, calling it the "greatest threats to democracy and freedom of expression in the history of Nigeria."
He said, "If the National Assembly makes the mistake of passing either or both of these two Bills Nigerians will suffer the consequences for many generations to come and human rights, liberty and freedom will be a thing of the past in our country.
"I would urge Nigerians not to view this matter with their usual indifference, complacency, docility, stoicism and lily-livered cowardice because the whole thing is an insidious atttempt to silence their tongues, cage their spirits, capture their souls, break their ability to resist tyranny and evil and finally turn them into a nation of pliant little quislings, slaves and errand boys.
"What we are witnessing is the final and greatest manifestation of the fascistic, totalitarian and authoritarian state which, like Hitler's Germany, is creeping up and hiding under the guise of democracy.
"Buhari and his friends want Nigeria to be like Stalin's Soviet Union or, better still, like today's North Korea and Saudi Arabia where dissent, oppositon to Government, plurality of views, variety of opinion, individual rights and criticism of Government policy and the maximum dictator is forbidden and where total power is concentrated in the hands of just one man. This is the classic Orwellian nightmare and it is unfolding before our very eyes.
"If they get away with it and achieve their objectives Nigeria is finished and within a matter of years we will become the blight of Africa, the pariah of the Third World, the laughing stock of the international community and the worlds largest prison.
"What a terrible fate for a people that are so compliant, so trusting, so innovative, so resourceful, so resilient and so blessed."
