The Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) has called on Senators and other officials to address existential issues which fuel restiveness, instead of scapegoating the social media.
“Rather than scapegoating social media for failure of government to address the underlying factors implicated in the lack of peace and the prevalence of conflicts in the country, government may well do good to itself and the country by rethinking its policies, which are generating poverty, unemployment, misery and hopelessness, all of which feed into discontent that results in youth restiveness.”
Y. Z. Ya’u, Executive Director, CITAD made the call in a statement condemning the call by Senate Leader, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele for the regulation of social media.
Ya’u noted recalled that “Last Thursday, while speaking during the presentation of nomination forms to Governor Biodun Oyebanji organized by the Ekiti State University Alumni Solidarity Group for BAO, Senate Leader, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele called for the regulation of social media in the country. He asserted that social media was a growing threat to the peace of Nigeria. This of course is not the first time a figure in government could make this argument and demand for the regulation of the social media. This has been a reoccurring topic for the last ten years or more.
He said, “Coming from a high-ranking senator and against the background of heightened clampdown on freedom of expression online, as exemplified by the recent report by the Media Rights Agenda (MRA) which documented over 141 incidents of attacks on journalists under the current regime, such a call must not be taken as accidental statement. It is part of the growing mindset within government that clamours for the derogation freedom of expression online.
CITAD executive director further noted that, “This country has been witnessing increasing high levels of insecurity with violence visiting innocent people almost on a daily basis across the country. This high level of insecurity has nothing to do with social media but resulting from the failure of government to address the root causes of insecurity and communal tensions in the country.
He said, “These root causes are injustice, poverty, unemployment and the inability of the government to decisively address the numerous communal conflicts across the country. Nowhere in world has reality shown that social media is responsible for the lack of peace. Instead, social media, like any other form of communication provides a means for grievance expression and many countries have indeed effectively used social media as a tool for the restoration of peace where peace had been disturbed
“We at the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) urge the government to urgently address these existential problems that are mutually exclusive to peace, and stop seeing the ghosts of social media in any breach of peace in the country that is the result of its own failure.”
Access to and use of social media has become a fundamental right of citizens as it is the means for the people to receive and share information and express themselves, a foundational requirement for any democracy worth its name. Social media regulation is a euphemism to curtail the right of expression of citizens online which has no place in our democracy and therefore must not be allowed. CITAD calls on the Senate Leader to not retrace his path, as former respected activist for social justice and add his voice to the demand that government should address the hunger, joblessness and insecurity as well as social injustice in the country.