‘Biafra that we forgot almost 50 years ago, things are now happening as if we were in 1967’

Hate Speech: Minding your language in Nigeria The panel at the Vanguard Conference Hall yesterday gave varied definitions of Hate Speech. Today the panel articulates the justification or otherwise of the proposal by the federal administration to push forward a law to regulate Hate Speech Aziken: In the light of history and happenings in the last five years, is there a justification for the promulgation of a law against hate speech at this point?

I will support this administration with the idea that this type of thing should not be allowed to be visited. The current president is also taking a share of his own hate speech, but we must stop it somewhere. There is no need to allow this thing to fester on more than it has gone so far. I agree that there is a justification for the law and that we need to look into the situation properly and a proper law should be enacted that can control what we say and how we say them, especially on the social media. There is absolute need for sanity because what goes on in the social media is pathetic, it is unthinkable. When I see a young man of 24 years old saying that Wole Soyinka is a fool, that may not be exactly hate speech, but it is intolerable. Today, I am not in government but there are people in government but being in government should not expose you to all sorts of assault simply because you are Minister of Information, President or Vice President. It should not make you be a target for unreasonable assault and attack. You cannot protect or defend yourself, and there are no sanctions for those who do those things. Therefore, for me, I will support this administration in this idea of trying to find a law to create sanity in the social media and also to prevent reckless statements that can incite or dehumanise people for no other reason except that they are in government offices. Nzeako:I think it is extremely important to look at the issue of justification and whether there is need to promulgate a law against hate speech now. We seem to have a modern contemporary challenge with respect to hate speech. As Dr. Okupe said, several countries of the world have promulgated laws against hate speech, and like I said, it is based on the historical experiences of the various countries. In Africa, it is instructive to state, judging from the experiences of South Africa, Kenya in recent times, Rwanda and Sierra Leone have internally promulgated laws against hate speeches to ensure that the citizenry is not further divided down the line. We now have issues about conflict of cultures because part of the challenges we have is with respect to freedom of speech and then the cultural setting that we have. When our culture does not tolerate certain statements, you have conflict of cultures. The culture in the western world is not the same as the culture in Africa.