The much touted hate speech Bill being proposed by the Senate,
Wednesday received another vituperation, as a legal luminary, Chief Afe
Babalola(SAN), described it as a slide to dictatorship.
Babalola, founder of Afe Babalola University , Ado Ekiti (ABUAD) ,
said it was needless and unwarranted for anyone to contemplate another
law to deal with false publications, when there were laws already
promulgated to take care of such situation.
The bill, sponsored by the Deputy Chief Whip, Aliyu Abdullahi, has
passed the first reading at the Senate, prescribing death penalty for
anyone found guilty of spreading a falsehood that led to the death of
another person.
Babalola spoke at ABUAD in Ado Ekiti on Wednesday, when the
leadership of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Ekiti chapter , led by
its Chairman, Com Rotimi Ojomoyela presented award of excellence to the
Legal Icon to appreciate his contributions to humanity and national
development.
The legal icon noted that the provisions of the proposed bill in its
entirety clearly contravene section 39 of the 1999 constitutions, which
guarantee freedom of speech.
Lampooning the champions of the bill, Babalola said: “This is the
beginning of dictatorship. There are enough laws like defamation, libel
and slander to deal with anybody who publishes falsehood against someone
and it comes by way of taking the person to court.
“So, it is of no need to making new laws to deal with somebody who
publishes falsehood. There was no need whatsoever for additional laws to
deal with that.
“Though, people are complaining, because the police are not doing well by delaying prosecution of offenders”.
Speaking about the emasculation of the country’s judiciary, Babalola
said nothing good can come of the temple of Justice in an environment
where judges were being intimidated.
“The Department of State Services did Irreparable damage to courts
the very day houses of judges were ransacked at night, because no judge
will give judgement against a government when he has the impression that
his house will be searched at night”, he stated.
He urged the federal government to focus attention on the
rehabilitation of the dilapidating federal roads in Ekiti, saying all
the roads in the state are in bad shape.
“Ekiti has four major federal roads; Ado-Ijan-Ikare, Ado-Ikere-Akure,
Ado-Otun, and Ado-Aramoko-Efon, bad enough, all of them are in bad
shape. Some have even cut off like the one at Erio”.
On the strategic position occupied by ABUAD as an institution and the
400 bed multi system Afe Babalola Teaching hospital, Babalola said: “a
white man came to assess my university a while ago and that hospital .
“After that tour, the man was impressed that he asked whether the
owner is a Nigerian or not and when he was told that I am a Nigerian,
the man said that if that was true, then there is hope for Nigeria. We
must all make sacrifices to make our country great,” he said.