A Shameful Elite and the Democratisation of Information -By Bámidélé Adémólá-Olátéjú

Democracy thrives when citizens are involved and informed. Democracy works when officeholders are responsible and accountable. On both flanks, be it that of citizens or officeholders, we have been failing; big time! Seeking the death penalty for “hate speech” shows the patent lack of critical thought in the National Assembly. In the case of Nigeria, it is shameful that the most ludicrous bills always come from the Senate. Thoughtlessness is what we get when we elevate the indecent and idiotic to positions of power due to primordial thinking and shortsightedness. How does speech of any kind get equated to murder? How can words attract capital punishment? We have legislators who are completely ignorant of the Constitution of Nigeria. That, this piece of crap passed second reading is beyond stupid!

For whatever it is worth, I will like to give some advice to the technology morons in the National Assembly. Sorry people, information has become democratised! Get used to it! We understand you are angry that the various platforms of social and new media are threats to your primitivism and primitive exercise of power and impunity. We know you wish to continue having undue and unchallenged privilege. Blame President Obasanjo for giving us mobile telephony. The mobile phone is your enemy now. That piece of technology is a genie and it is out of the bottle. There is nothing you can do about it. You are only looking at one dimension of the issue at hand. I can understand that, because most of you are linear thinkers, if at all. You are looking at how social media is curtailing your excesses and exposing your closets. You are not thinking about how the young are seeing lives from their cell phones, in well run and organised societies, and how this can spell doom for an unengaged and deprived demographic.

I am sorry! You can’t control information the way you used to any more, as in the days of information monarchy, when you had newspaper editors in your pockets and could buy off content. With social media, the traditional dynamics of access and inequality around news and information have changed forever! You are fighting a lost battle. In 2016 and 2017, you sought censorship via a spurious social media bill and it fell flat on its face! While so much effort is being devoted to curtailing free speech, bills that will guarantee gender equality and protection for children get killed each time. Unfortunately for you, you will find no respite because the audience of Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp exceeds the traditional media in thousands of folds. Social media is our territory. We the people set the agenda. We determine the control of news and information flows. Trying to control social media under the cover of “hate speech” is a violation of human rights, particularly the freedom of expression. It will not fly.

The nebulous explanation given by Sabi Abdullahi, the senator who introduced the bill for the establishment of Independent National Commission for Hate Speeches would have been laughable were it not for his attempt at hiding the obvious. Each time I read pronouncements from people like Abdullahi, I feel sad about the intellectual laziness of those who are supposed to be making the laws governing our lives! What do this senator and his aides (if any) ever consider properly? If they did any research or a simple Google search, they would have come across several international, regional and national normative frameworks on social and non-regulatory mechanisms that can help to counter the production, dissemination and impact of hateful messages online. There is a compedium of these frameworks on the UNESCO website. To those of us who follow and chronicle the careers of Nigerian politicians and power elite, the goal of the Sabi Abdullahi bill is not hate speech, but to shrink the political space. However, the constitution of Nigeria has enough protections in it against hate speech, instead of the judicial rigmarole that has now been invented to snare those who dissent. In a country where judgement is available for sale, where does this lead?

Technology is a tool. There will always be the good and bad guy users. Digital media poses several challenges to democracy. An example is in Russia’s meddling with the United States’ past presidential election. We have seen the cloning of the identity of reputable media organisations, the escalation of intolerance and the rapid spread of misinformation and fake news via social media. Despite all these, we have reasons to be hopeful about the future of media and democracy, as shown by the galvanisation of the youth to vote for Buhari in Nigeria’s last presidential election.

Every well meaning Nigerian must condemn the consistent urge to legislate for the protection of the current ruling elite, instead of looking for far-reaching and enduring legislation that will benefit future generations of Nigerians. This legislative myopia is a threat to our collective well being. Laws should be made to protect every Nigerian, not a select few. And to the power elite, be rest assured that your stupidity will always go viral because every outrageous, stupid, batshit crazy act and comment will cause people to click ‘hilarious’, ‘sad’ or ‘angry’. These reactions propel the algorithm of the platforms you loathe. The information ecosystem has changed for good. We determine what the attention backbone is. Soon, with just a hashtag, we can determine your political fate. Watch out!

Bámidélé Adémólá-Olátéjú a farmer, youth advocate and political analyst writes this weekly column, “Bamidele Upfront” for PREMIUM TIMES. Follow me on Twitter @olufunmilayo