Following the uproar by some section of Nigerians that the Federal Government hate speech law was targeting to gag the freedom of speech, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed has come out to explain what constitutes hate speech. The Minister while explaining hate speech on Thursday said “any speech, broadcast or publication that denigrates a person, group, and group of persons on the bases of their sex, religion or political belief is hate speech.
He added, “Any broadcast or publication that tends to erode social cohesion that is an attack on our inclusion and common value is hate speech.
“Those who go to television and denigrate one person or the other with a view to causing social disharmony have breached the hate speech code.
“They know what they are doing and they must be made to pay for it,” the minister said while justifying the increase of hate speech fine from N500,000 to N5 million in the amended National Broadcasting Code.
Mr. Mohammed explained why the government raised the fine so high was to serve as deterrence to the-would- be offenders who their intention is to throw confusion into the public through their utterances of peddling fake news and speeches.
He said no country in our contemporary world would sit back and watch its very fabric being pulled down by activities of peddlers of fake news and hate speeches especially now that our country is polarised along ethnicity, religion, and region.
The Minister said what the government discovered was that when the fine was just half a million, people were still reckless because they think they will just pay the fine and keep spewing hate speech.
According to him, they got to find out that when some people take advert to broadcast houses containing some hate speech or fake news, eventually the broadcast houses turned them down for lack of moderation and possible punishment by authority, the purveyors of the hate speech will say, they are ready to foot the fine that would come as a result and even ready to pay extra.
He said that hate speech has a long history and is capable of destroying us as people.
He recalled in 2017 when his ministry devoted an entire National Council of Information meeting to discuss the effect of fake news and hate speech.
The campaign against hate speech and fake news was embarked on advocacy visits to media houses across the country on its dangers to corporate existence.
The Minister cited the genocide that happened in Rwanda where over 800,000 people were massacred as well as Bosnia and Cambodia were all courtesy of fake news and hate speech.
The Minister said the punishment the Nigerian government prescribed is nothing when compared to what countries like Iceland, Norway, UK, and South Africa have criminalized hate speech.
He said any hate speech attracts fine or Jail term or both in many countries like those mentioned above.
Mohammed acknowledged that though social media has aggravated the whole thing, but promised that the government is doing something about it without stifling the freedom of speech.