‘Hate Speech’ And The Coming Hangman!

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

When governments betray enduring inability to solve some of the very basic needs of their people in order to end (or at least reduce) their pains and suffering, and if also the democratic character of the heads of such regimes have begun to badly wither, their impatience and irritation for dissenting views will start growing with incredible speed as they see that in the eyes and hearts of the citizenry, their esteem and appreciation are badly plummeting.

At such times, their desperation to gag the people will become so palpable. It might even degenerate to a stage when merely speaking about your pain and suffering could be viewed as “Hate Speech” – depending on who is interpreting your complaint. After all, by talking about the hardship in the land due to failed, misconceived policies, the collapse of infrastructure and lack of basic amenities, you are portraying the government as a failure; that could qualify as “Hate Speech,” and you could go in for it. So, to stay out of trouble, you just have to act a “good citizen” by keeping quiet and suffering in silence. You may never know, the hangman might be a yelling distance away! History is replete with examples!

Regulate Unemployment And Poverty Not Social Media

By Bob MajiriOghene Etemiku

Sometime in 2014, and prior to the 2015 General elections, most Nigerians were shell-shocked at the sort of language which certain highly-placed politicians flung here and there at Goodluck Jonathan. The arrowhead cum leader of those who used these irresponsible words to describe their president then was Nasir El Rufai, now governor of Kaduna State, followed by the present minister of information and culture, Lai Mohammed.

*Jonathan and Buhari 

From the way these highly-placed Nigerians used these words, nobody would have thought those words constituted what we now know as ‘hate speech’, ‘fake news’ and ‘irresponsible journalism’. What again made such words as ‘clueless’, incompetent’ and ‘making Nigeria ungovernable’, seemingly harmless then was that the individual who those hateful and highly embarrassing words were directed at appeared to take them with a smile and did so apparently because he understood that insults and aspersions are corollaries to public office, and your ability to accept them, deflect or dodge them makes you a leader or a charlatan. 

Of Hate Speeches, The Nigerian Senate And The Death Penalty Bill

By Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo

Recently, the Nigerian Senate entertained a bill on “hate speech”, the high-point of which is the recommendation of death sentence to any person found guilty of hate speech. I am utterly disappointed that the Senate could at this point in our history be considering such bill even in the face of mounting challenges confronting the country. This is a typical case of treating the symptoms of an illness rather than the root cause of the illness.

*Dr. Arthur Nwankwo 

I am disappointed that life in Nigeria today has become so cheap; that while we are daily assailed by the atrocities of Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram and other merchants of death, that while other countries are removing capital punishments from their statute books; an institution such as the Nigerian Senate is considering a bill to constitutionalize capital punishment. This is a tragedy of gargantuan proportion and it does consolidate the impression among many that Nigeria is irredeemable.