Distinguished readers, you are once again welcome to our weekly leadership discourse.
Today, I interrogate a subject that has remained ever controversial within our system, and towards which leadership has often exhibited an ambivalent disposition: the abuse of social media. Over the last couple of years, the misuse of social media platforms in our country has become a major national debacle. In an uncharted and largely unregulated environment such as ours, social media has, in many instances, morphed into a weapon of mass destruction. As misinformation fuels needless civil strife, destroys institutional and private reputations, and promotes public cynicism, it is, at the same time, increasingly implicated in cases of depression, psychological trauma, and even suicidal deaths. This is no longer a matter to be treated with levity or casually waved off under the seductive banner of free-speech absolutism.
I am aware that, since the administration of the late President Muhammadu Buhari, attempts were made to regulate the use of social media in Nigeria, but regrettably to no avail. The Executive arm of government even went as far as presenting a bill before the National Assembly to address this problem. However, criticism, opposition, and political distractions ensured that the effort did not succeed. I must confess that, at that material time, I was among the opponents of the bill. The prevailing sentiment then was that any form of regulation amounted to a descent into authoritarian overreach or a pathway to gagging legitimate dissent. As time passed, however, and many of us became serial victims of social media abuse, some directly, others indirectly, positions began to shift. Indeed, many of the earliest critics of regulation have since become the strongest advocates for reasonable controls. It bears emphasising that there is hardly any civilised and progressive jurisdiction in the world today where social media is not monitored or regulated to varying degrees. The notion that a nation can simply abandon millions of citizens, especially its youths, to an unregulated digital jungle and still expect national stability, social sanity, and reputational order is dangerously naïve. The time is therefore overripe for Nigeria to progress beyond endless debates and towards a functional regulatory framework. I am not oblivious to certain provisions of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Act which seek to sanction certain forms of digital abuse. The reality, however, is that what we now require is a comprehensive, coherent, and contemporary regulatory architecture that addresses the problem in its present dimensions. It is in this regard that I take advantage of a recent onslaught by a faceless online group attempting to malign my hard-earned reputation by imputing misconduct against me and other senior lawyers involved in the matter of First Bank v. Nestoil and Others. A publication authored by one Jackson Ude of the Pointblank social medium has been circulating, laden with a catalogue of brazen falsehoods. Ordinarily, I would not have dignified the dishonourable author, given his antecedents and modus operandi, with any response. However, the radically uninformed, the unsuspecting, and the unwary public sometimes deserve clarification, lest fiction be mistaken for fact. Contrary to the lies being peddled, no such appeal has been heard by the Supreme Court, nor by any other level of court. In fact, the substantive case remains in abeyance before the Federal High Court at the instance of First Bank, which initiated the action. All that has transpired thus far is the continuous conduct of the plaintiff’s case ex parte. From where, then, did the story of the Supreme Court rendering a judgment arise, if not from the imagination of the authors and their sponsors? To further clarify, I have circulated alongside this publication the relevant ruling evidencing what actually transpired at the Supreme Court. Secondly, as already demanded by my solicitors, where did the alleged sum of over forty million dollars purportedly paid in connection with the case, whether as professional fees or as a compromise sum, originate? Was it paid in cash, by bank transfer, or through some other mysterious channel? What is the source of this information? At what point was any refund allegedly demanded by any client? These are basic questions that any decent journalist, let alone one purporting to expose corruption, ought to ask before rushing to the press. But in the age of clickbait and digital blackmail, junk journalism appears to have become a lucrative enterprise.
It is in this connection that one cannot, in good conscience, perpetually vilify and condemn the Nigerian Police Force or other investigative agencies when they attempt to unravel and prosecute individuals who weaponise misinformation to extort, defame, destabilise, or intimidate others. Free speech, yes, but not freedom to defame, blackmail, fabricate, and psychologically damage fellow citizens. Enough is enough. The leadership of the country must now wake up and tame this monster. Regulation does not equate to gagging dissent; rather, it is the precondition for preserving civil discourse, protecting reputations, and safeguarding national cohesion. Social media has enormous benefits, no one denies this, but in its current abuse, it is costing the nation far more than we care to admit. In subsequent editions of my column, I shall exhaustively address the wider legal, sociological, and policy implications attendant to this subject, including comparative regulatory models across jurisdictions. For now, it suffices to sound the alarm: the cost of inaction is rising, the casualties are multiplying, and the time for responsible leadership intervention is long overdue.
Comments