BUHARI’S STRANGE SOCIAL MEDIA REGULATION AMBUSH - BY MARTINS OLOJA
Journalism professional bodies and indeed
officials of the Nigerian Press organization (NPO) comprising the Newspapers
Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), the
Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs)
should be vigilant about the new project of Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Nigeria’s
Minister of Information and Culture: strange social media regulation project.
The tone for this new
bugbear has just been set with the Minister’s repeated warning that the
government of Buhari would, “no longer fold its arms and allow activities
capable of setting the country on fire to continue unchecked”. According to the
former spokesperson of the ruling APC, the social media is “currently out of
control, featuring “fake news” and “hate speech” and like the broadcast media,
needs to be reined in. Besides, they have the potential to harm the country’s
democracy and threaten “national unity”.
And here is the thing, now
that the apex court has rounded off all serious petitions over the 2019
presidential election; there is an urgent need to look beyond Lai Mohammed and
meretricious regulation of the social media.
I mean senior citizens and
patriots who want democracy to be sustained here should begin to look at a
possible rise of a strongman who may want to tamper with press freedom again
for some curious agenda.
I mean our President,
Muhammadu Buhari who said that, “it’s time to move on” now that the Supreme
Court has dismissed all petitions against his victory, may return to the
country soon to begin a strange project against freedom of expression in
Africa’s most populous country. We need to be vigilant. We need to be more
resourceful because the already disorganised opposition party is going to be
weaker as more of their assets will soon cross over to the governing party in
pursuit of food and vainglory.
The political class here
has always been unreliable. And sadly, the power elite hasn’t got any clear
consensus on what to do with the country beyond a flurry of many tales told by
simpletons, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
The press has been
weakened by poor capitalisation, nurtured by some dubious proprietary
interests, which have undermined its independence. And so, any strong man can
rise now with strange doctrines and extra-legal policies to undermine democracy
and the rule of law.
There is already a fertile
ground for any evil to thrive in today’s Nigeria where a Chief Justice was
removed within weeks by an administrative tribunal without any judicial
pronouncements. We are talking of a country where even opposition figures,
civil society organisations, citizen journalists, mainstream press and even the
Bar Association cannot raise any questions about what ails the leader of the
most populous black nation on earth who is again in the United Kingdom until
November 17, this year. I am talking of a country of anything-is-possible where
soldiers will just rise and declare a strange search on all citizens of about
200 million people because they are looking for insurgents who they claimed
have escaped from two states of a federation of 36 states.
Despite all these, I
believe in Nigeria where so many young men and women are prospering without any
critical infrastructure and flexible loans to do business. I believe Nigeria
will rise again when these villains and scoundrels in power all over the federation
fizzle out soon. That is why I want to appeal again, for us to be more
vigilant. I am calling on all citizens to continue to keep vigil over this
democracy as I did on 14 October, 2018 in a piece titled, ‘Keeping vigil over this democracy’.
I would also like to
encourage the growing army of concerned (old and young) citizens to be ready
from any eventuality from our president who may return from London to implement
his new deal called ‘social media regulation’ even the federal executive
council (FEC) has approved. It will be recalled too that I also warned here too
on August 19, 2018 about the possibility of president Buhari tampering with
press freedom again in another article titled, ‘Before Buhari tampers with Press freedom again’.
We should really be
vigilant enough to recognise emerging rule of a strongman in this country.
Whenever you see strong words coming against the media inform of mulling
malicious regulation instead of taking erring media men to court, you should
get prepared for the arrival of strongmen.
Our strongman who is
resting in Europe at this moment is satisfied that he has conquered us with the
wobbly democracy we have in place now without strong institutions to nurture
it.
The elements of a
functional democracy always include part or all of the following: participation
of the people either directly or indirectly, independent judiciary, separation of powers, the rule of
law, the respect for fundamental rights, free and fair elections, multi-party
system, freedom of the press, accountability and transparency of governance
process, among others.
Is it therefore surprising
that everywhere you go in Nigeria today, speakers and keynoters are saying
openly that Nigeria still requires capable, reliable, and sustainable
institutions: strong and credible legislature; capable police forces;
independent judges; a free press; a vibrant private sector and a reliable civil
society to give life to our democracy. This is where a strongman can thrive…
As ‘The Economist’ warned
in a cover in 2018, “…the world should be worried about the rise of strongman
politics”. Now, I need to sensitise our people to get prepared for war on
truth. There may be some curious correlation between the strategic launch of
war on (social) media, failed attempt to regulate the civil society and the
military’s takeover of internal security role from police in the name of
operation positive identification (OPI) at this time. I hope no one will
insinuate that there may be some third term agenda in all these curious
warming-up activities to launch emergence of strongman politics.
“Feedback”
Re: ‘Why Buhari may not
make history’.
By Otunba Sola Olatunji
When I read Martins
Oloja’s seminal piece titled, ‘Why history may not make history’last Sunday, I
was elated because it's an opportunity for me to contribute my view to this
subject of national importance.
‘Nigeria and visionary leaders’
In my small mind,
visionary leaders can be seen or described from different perspectives but for
the purpose of this topic I will simply describe a visionary leader as someone
who came and impacted positively on the lives of his people and left them
better than he met them or better still, liberated his people from diseases,
hunger , economic deprivation, ethnic conflicts, etc & restore unity ,
oneness, prosperity and orderliness in a society. I do not intend to take you
far about few examples of visionary leaders we have produced in Africa. In
Nigeria, we have produced the likes of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr. Nnamdi
Azikiwe, Alhmadu Bello, Sir Tafawa Balewa, Chief Anthony Enahoro & even our
own Chief Olu Akinfosile, who could be seen as our state visionary leaders in
their own right. We have state visionary leaders and even local visionary
leaders depending on the space where such person is operating from. However, it's a common saying that every
politics is local. So, for you to graduate from one level of visionary
leadership to the other, you have to show traits of leadership from schools,
communities, society. One common thing that united these great men together was
liberating their people from the yoke of imperialism by the British government
and they successfully achieved their dream of independence for their
people. Although they are not with us
today, tbe air of freedom we are experiencing across the country today can be
attributed to their great work. However,
the internal colonialism we talk about today is our making & we should all
strive to resolve them ourselves. So, I
would like to say that these great leaders came & impacted positively on
the lives of their people and left them better than they met them so I have no
hesitation to describe them as visionary leaders.
Visionary leaders abound
in some parts of Africa too. Although some of them are no longer with us.
Thomas Nyerere of Tanzania, Kwame Nkruma of Ghana, Nelson Mandela of South
Africa etc are examples of visionary leaders in Africa.
BUHARI
& DATE WITH HISTORY
The emergence of Buhari as
the president of the most populous black nation in the world was full of hopes
& great optimism by Nigerians both home & in the Diaspora. Even friends
& well-wishers of our country were not left out. The great optimism can be
seen partly because Buhari was once a military head of State and his regime
though seen as authoritarian but was able to restore order in our society
through the implementation of War Against Indiscipline (WAI'. So, his emergence
was full of hope & end to corruption etc. Secondly, that he was given the
chance to have a date with history as the president after three attempts in the
past is remarkable. There was a particular occasion when he openly wept for his
failure to win an election. Therefore 2015 election & renewals of his
mandate for his second term in office in 2019 provided greater opportunities
for him to write a good history for himself as a visionary leader. In my view,
he needs to do the following if he wants to be make history as Oloja noted:
Ethnic bigotry: Mr. President
should see the country as his constituency and not promoting disunity through
ethnic governance. The next president
after him will implement same policy & there will be agitation, which may
lead to disintegration. A visionary leader
will run inclusive government to promote unity and cohesion of the country.
Constitution and cost of
governance: It is high time we restructured our constitution because the one we
are using today was handed over to us by the military without input from “we
the people” as claimed. As nation evolves. We continue to reform our
constitution in respect of those things that will make us better as a
nation. We should work on the federal
character clause in our constitution, cost of governance as though we proclaim
presidential system of government but in application, it is unitary government.
We have too many contradictions in our constitution. Therefore, Buhari should
rise above ethnic sentiments and work for the country as a visionary leader so
that he can have a date with history.
In summary, leaders don’t
necessarily take the views of their advisers 100%.
They usually have their own inner views and
should be held accountable when they are in power and after office. They must
take responsibility for their success and failures. Our president will no doubt
be counted in less than four years from now among the visionary leaders we have
produced in Nigeria, Africa & the world if he can rise above ethnic
bigotry, pick the best hands to run the affairs of this country with him , run
inclusive government, embark on constitutional reforms and reduce the cost of
governance , sustain the fight against corruption, deploy recovered loots as
social investments to reduce poverty in our society. Thank you.
Otunba Olatunji, a political communications
consultant wrote in from Lagos.
Note: This
article is published as Inside
Stuff with MARTINS OLOJA every Sunday in The
Guardian and
used by permission.
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