Remember how we all woke up one morning and heard we had a new national anthem to learn? It looks like affliction might actually arise a second time because your faces are cooking up something sour.
The National Assembly (yes, the same people that approved the State Of Emergency declaration in Rivers) is working towards passing a bill that will potentially restrict bloggers and `other social media users’ in extension.
What’s going on?
We’ve called the people at the National Assembly agbayas before and that’s because they were fan-boying President Tinubu, instead of keeping him in check. We don’t know the name to call them again because their latest move has left us confused. On March 18, the Nigerian Senate passed for a second reading a bill that will compel bloggers and social media platforms to have physical offices.
This piece of legislature titled “A Bill for an Act to Amend the Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023, to Mandate the Establishment of Physical Offices within the Territorial Boundaries of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by Social Media Platforms and for Related Matters,” was first read at the Senate on November 21, 2024 and was sponsored by Ned Nwoko, the senator representing Delta North Senatorial District.
What exactly is the bill about?
The bill is looking to amend the already existing Data Protection Act of 2023 to include the following clauses:
- All bloggers operating within Nigeria must have a verifiable physical office in any of the country’s capital cities before they can be allowed to operate.
- All bloggers operating within Nigeria “must keep proper records of their employees and belong to a recognised national association of bloggers, which shall have its headquarters in Abuja.”
- Social media companies (like Meta and xAI) whose social media platforms (Instagram, X, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, etc) are used in Nigeria must establish identifiable physical offices within Nigeria.
Why is this bill a bad idea?
Not to play Captain Obvious here, but this bill is a recipe for disaster for many reasons. For starters, it will clamp down on Nigerians’ freedom of expression, which is already shaky.
If allowed to pass, this bill will also be another way for the government to shut down opposition or regular Nigerian citizens saying things they do not like. They are already doing this with Section 24 of the Cybercrime Act. This Section of the Cybercrime Act was used to target journalists like Daniel Ojukwu, who was tracked down and illegally detained by the Nigerian Police for his investigative report exposing corrupt practices in the government. The same section has been used to detain people like Olamide Thomas and Olumide Ogunsanwo, also known as Sea King, who “insulted” government officials and agencies.
Journalists and regular social media users are going to be in hot soup if this new bill is allowed to pass, and there is no dainty way to say it. The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) agrees, too, which is why they recently wrote to the National Assembly (NASS) on April 12, telling them to stop working on this bill.
SERAP pointed out in their letter to NASS that in addition to infringing on Nigerians’ rights to access information and digital technology, the bill’s success could “severely hamper business operations in the country, as many are reliant on foreign tools, services and technologies for their operations, as well as other sectors that rely on online information.”
Why we should call out the National Assembly
The Senate President and Senator Ned Nwoko (who sponsored the bill) swears that this bill is not targetted at the freedom of boggers and social media users but we should all take that with a shit ton of salt.
As the bill passed its second reading, Senate President Godswill Akpabio said, “I don’t want the world to misunderstand us that the Senate wants to gag social media, it is about tax. For the purpose of tax.” The thing is, this logic makes no sense at all because as Punch Newspapers pointed out in an editorial, these social media companies already employ tons of Nigerians remotely and are “ already contributing robustly to Nigeria’s tax revenue.).
So, even though the National Assembly might be packaging this bill as something that will be economically beneficial to Nigeria, we should all call it out because the maths is clearly not mathing. What this bill smells like is an opportunity for the ruling class to deprive Nigerians of their rights to freedom of speech and access to information.We should also act fast in calling out this suspicious bill because the current National Assembly has a reputation for supporting unnecessary things. They did it with the surprising change of the National Anthem in 2024, and more recently with the ratification of the State Of Emergency declaration in Rivers state.
What can you do to stop this bill?
You can do either or all of the following:
- Talk about it on social media everyday until it is scrapped. You can do this by using hashtags and tagging international organisations like the UN and Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch.
- Call out lawmakers in both chambers of the National Assembly and always tag them when you do
- Call the lawmakers representing you at both the House of Representatives and the Senate to tell them you don’t want this bill to become law. You can find all of their contact information here.Create and share online petitions advocating for the bill to be scrapped. Petitions are easy to create, and you can make one on platforms like this.
