Senate reverses decision on jail term for online critics

Nigeria Senate

The Senate on Tuesday rescinded its decision to pass a bill that seek to jail online critics of the government seven years. By this the Senate had bowed to pressure over criticisms that had greeted its proposed bill on electronic transactions and fraud detection,  which  stipulated a seven-year jail term for any user of social media who post information that threatened the security of the country.

Specifically,  section 13 (3) of the draft bill stipulates that “any person who intentionally propagate false information that could threaten the security of the country or that is capable of inciting  the general public against the government through electronic message shall be guilty of an offence and upon conviction,  shall be sentenced to seven years imprisonment, or a fine of N5m, or both.”

The controversies that the provision of the bill generated after the public hearing two weeks ago, attracted negative publicity for the Senate.

But the sponsor of the bill, Senator Adegbenga Kaka, in company with the Chairman, Senate Committee on Information, Media and Public Affairs, Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe announced to journalists on Tuesday that the offending clause had been deleted from the bill.

“I have the permission of the senate leadership to announce to the world that that the section 13 (3) shall be deleted,” he said.

Kaka added, “The bill that I presented to the Senate,  precisely on July 28,  2011, was a bill to regulate the electronic transfer of funds and after presentation,  by the time we got to the second reading there was a remark that a similar bill was tabled before the sixth senate by Senator Ayo Arise.

“I was then asked to go and rework my own and marry it with that of Senator Arise. In the course of doing it, a bill for an act for the prohibition of all electronics transfer, all electronics transaction fraud and electronic transfer transactions in Nigeria and other related matters was presented.

“It passed through the first reading, and the second reading and last week, there was a public hearing by the joint committee on Judiciary,  narcotics.”