- We must be careful in criminalising it
Hate speech is the latest of the troubles afflicting our country. Special attention has been drawn to this political and social aberration since the return of President Muhammadu Buhari from his medical leave in London. So worrisome have the concept and practice of hate speech become that the Federal Government decided to take an ad-hoc approach to its management. About a few hours after the President’s broadcast to the nation, a summary decision was made to criminalise hate speech.
In this respect, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo proclaimed hate speech a crime at a National Security Conference in Aso Villa, Abuja: “The Federal Government has drawn a line on hate speech. Hate speech is a species of terrorism; terrorism, as it is defined popularly, is the unlawful use of violence or intimidation against individuals or groups, especially for political ends.”
Soon after this, the Inspector-General of Police quickly ordered his staff across the country to arrest those who perpetrate hate speech, either in the social media or via conventional media platforms. In support of the Vice President, the Sultan of Sokoto added that “none will be allowed to get away with making speeches that can cause sedition or that can cause violence.”
It is not unlikely that the average citizen must be equally worried about the rise in the incidence of hate speech, especially in the last one year or two. Vitriolic verbal attacks on sections of the country by apostles of secession or disparaging remarks about other nationalities by issuers of quit notice to members of other nationalities should be enough to alarm those who value public order, social cohesion, and harmonious existence among people of diverse cultures in our society.
Hate speech in other countries have led to violence and death of innocent citizens, and this explains why many liberal democracies from Canada to Denmark, Germany, India, South Africa, and the United States, enacted hate speech or hate crime laws. The social, economic, and political consequences of hate speech are too obvious for any society with a sense of self-preservation to ignore, especially those with such diverse social, cultural, and religious orientations as Nigeria. For the danger inherent in hate speech, such as is already causing tensions across the country in respect of quit notice and partial withdrawal of quit notice to members of other communities, people mandated to manage public order have good reasons to want to discourage the purveyors of hate speech.
But there is need for caution about taking a knee-jerk reaction to a complex matter, such as conjuring a legal correlation between hate speech and terrorism. It is instructive to take note of UNESCO’s observation that “hate speech lies in a complex nexus with freedom of expression; individual, group and minority rights; and concepts of dignity, equality and safety of person.” Undoubtedly, freedom of speech and expression is a value that democratic societies hold dear, just as citizens need to recognise the importance to respect the rights of others in the exercise of their own rights. Before citizens are arrested for hate speech or special courts are created, as recommended by the governors, our democratic process must not be compromised. For example, it is dangerous to equate popular definition of hate speech with legally binding definition, just as it is irregular in the context of rule of law to summarily rename hate speech as terrorism, or to set up a special court without proper codification of hate speech.
For the avoidance of doubt, this paper finds hate speech obnoxious and a manifestation of primitive behaviour in a modern society. But there is need for principle of proportionality in criminalising this anti-social behaviour. There are other offences in the country’s criminal and penal codes that can respond to hate speech more appropriately than terrorism. Sedition and incitement are such crimes. Applying such laws allows for immediate response by government to hate speech.
If we must create new laws to respond to hate speech as it is done in other democracies, then there is need to be democratic about it by subjecting such decision to due process of lawmaking. In a democratic ethos, it is risky to treat enactment of law in the manner of making decrees under non-democratic governments. The matter of free speech as a fundamental human right requires that we do not rush into a situation that can allow any government or its agency to muzzle or muffle free speech under the pretext of fighting hate speech.
We should not create new laws or interpret existing ones in a way to suggest stifling or criminalising political dissent or criticism of the party or persons in power. Above all, we believe that, in addition to making a clear law on hate speech, both government and society need to verify the root cause of the rise in expression of prejudice and intolerance in the country, with a view to fighting it.
Let us nurture a polity in which individuals and groups can disagree without being disagreeable.
