Hate Speech Bill: Why I Oppose Proposed Legislation – Soyinka
Literary icon Professor Wole Soyinka says he opposes the anti-hate speech Bill because it would limit free speech while increasing abuse of power in Nigeria.
The Nobel Laureate, who made this known on Monday, said though he had been a victim of hate speech and fake news, he would not support any attempt of “chopping off the heads of those whom we considered to have offended our sensibilities.”
The consideration of the Bill, National Commission for the Prohibition of Hate Speeches (Establishment, etc), has not gone down well with many Nigerians, who suspect that their rights, clearly tied to section 39 of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution (as amended), could be abridged.
And Soyinka, while speaking in Abuja, at a summit to mark the United Nations International Anti- Corruption Day, warned against using state agencies to strip citizens of their constitutionally-guaranteed freedom.
He said, “We all are disgusted with fake news, hate news, destabilising and toxic news, but let’s ask ourselves seriously what we think we are doing if we start chopping off the heads of those whom we considered to have offended our sensibilities, either as individuals or as institutions, especially if such actions terminate the possibility of free expression, even though sometimes there is abuse of that expression.
“I stand here as one of those individuals who have been most affected by hate news, fake news, even to the extent that I had my identity stolen, abused and used in all kinds of ways, against what I really believe in.
“But I’ll be the last person to support any idea of terminating a recourse to information simply because some people abuse the means of that and the answer to that is people or put them before a firing squad.
“When you take a combination, therefore, of a major principle, almost core security institution, you take that side by side with that of a legislative house, it curtails the possibility of an opened society and looks as if we have all been put in a slave plantation.”
He also said, “For instance, if the DSS is accused tomorrow of corruption, the DSS will say this is hate speech, off with its head and then maybe when we get to court and the judge grants the poor felon a temporary reprieve to bail, any security agency can then jump in the court, re-arrest the felon, break into the citadel of justice and say ‘we are re-arresting this individual because he’s indulged in hate speech’.
“Let us be careful in our responses to failures of society and make sure that we are not cutting off our noses to spite our faces.”