Former governor of Ogun state Olusegun Osoba has condemned the Senate over the controversial Social Media and Hate Speech bills, saying their action was targeted at gagging Nigerians, especially media practitioners.
The former governor, who spoke in Abeokuta, Ogun state at an event, organised to mark 160 years of Journalism in Nigeria, called on all Nigerians to reject the bills, saying “We (Nigerians) will be the victims of the bill if we allow it to scale through.”
Osoba, who praised the media for the liberation of Nigeria from both the colonial and military rules, stressed that the media suffered and toiled to liberate Nigeria from colonial rule and equally battled the military regime in order entrench democracy in the country.
The veteran journalist asked the lawmakers if they took part in the struggle for the liberation of Nigeria’s independence, saying “We don’t deserve this treatment from the Senators who are now enjoying the benefit of the war that we waged against the military to entrench democracy in Nigeria. And I am happy that since 1999, democracy has come to stay.”
Osoba said “We fought the military to standstill. You recall many of our people lost their lives, those who are propagating a bill should remember. Where were they when NADECO, the media stood up to fight Abacha? Were they born? Did their fore fathers fight in those days when Hubert Macaulay and co, were fighting for liberation of the colonial system to independence and then we took it up under the military?
“We all suffered under Abacha. The Guardian was burnt. Punch was closed down. Those who were running TELL Magazine had to run out of the country into exile. I can go on with the examples of deprivation we suffered”, the former governor said.
The former governor, however, said there are mechanism to checkmate “bad journalism” if any Nigerian finds a report to have damaged his reputation.
Osoba said he severally had challenged series of false report about his personality in court and won.
Earlier in his address, governor Dapo Abiodun, had disagreed with calls for death sentence for those who abuse the use social media as a tool for information dissemination.
But the Governor argued that the proposed social media law before the National Assembly should not be seen as targeting or gagging the critical media or curtails free speech. Instead, he said, the law should be seen as a way to hold citizen journalists to account and make them responsible for their reports.
Abiodun bemoaned the rise of malicious and deliberate misinformation by some unethical social media users. He said they put the information superhighway to wrong uses by targeting other Nigerians – high and lowly placed – for character assassination and portrays people in bad light.
The governor said the call for death penalty in the bill is however uncalled for.
“We have to find a win-win situation. The idea is not to gag the media in any form or manner, but to ensure that the media is held responsible for carrying out their responsibility; and of cause, the issue of death penalty is not called for,” he said.
Abiodun also added that the deliberate misinformation on people by some unscrupulous elements have prompted reactions from some quarters of the country who he were pushed to call for death penalties for people found guilty of deliberately misinforming the people.
He charged veterans of the profession not to only play their role of informing the people, but to also ensure that they play their role as elders by monitoring the younger generation of journalists.
