Toyin:
As I stated at the in an earlier post I shared Prof Soyinka's fear of applying draconian penalties to violator's of the proposed Hate Speech Bill. But that does not mean Nigeria does not need such a bill; whereas he sees the abuse of provisions of the bill by government is of more concern than the ill it is meant to curb, I maintain that such hypothetical fears should not prevent the legislation which curtains the activities of those who victimize people like him unjustly and prevent the nation in general from developing a higher civic ethos socio-politically.
The difference as they say will be in the fine print of the legislation. Formally and in public discourses Nigerians must be ready to demonstrate that they are able to develop and adapt to the higher civic strictures of other cultures whose orderliness they admire and should be proud to assert that they can progress beyond ' no mind am' culture in the nation's inter- personal relationships. Otherwise if those others refer to their low civic and cultural attainment they should not feel offended.
No matter how the Scots feel about the English ( and they do not always see eye to eye and are actually debating separation)y ou will not see the average Scot or English throwing low life abuse at each other on the streets or on the internet as is the staple of say the Igbo and the Yoruba or the Igbo and northern Nigerians.
The proposed bill can rein in such behaviour. Nothing else will if there is no enforcement of the notion that such behaviour will NOT be tolerated. The unwanted behaviour will not just disappear on its own; on the contrary it will intensify with calamitous hate crime consequences.
Lifting the level of public decency in national discourse needs to be proactive and this in turn - due to group psychoanalytic process- lifts the quality of thought of Nigerians about one another ( since in large part dreams are made up of the days residue) which then positively impact subsequent days communication processes and in the long run the vicious cycle of violent thoughts and acts are replaced by virtuous alternatives and the goal of a cultured nation is realised.
Most of those who opposed the bill have not allowed the fine print of how it will work in reality explained to them and the various committees it will go through to allay fears of its abuse; in short they substitute fears for information.
OAA
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------
From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>
Date: 13/12/2019 11:36 (GMT+00:00)
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>, WoleSoyinkaSociety <WoleSoyinkaSociety@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: Edo_Global. Why I oppose hatespeech bill, even though I am hate speech victim -Wole Soyinka
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Alukoro Agbaye kakakiaye@gmail.com [Edo_Global] <Edo_Global@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2019 at 07:44
Subject: Edo_Global. Why I oppose hate speech bill, even though I am hate speech victim -Wole Soyinka
To: <Edo_Global@yahoogroups.com>
From: Alukoro Agbaye kakakiaye@gmail.com [Edo_Global] <Edo_Global@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2019 at 07:44
Subject: Edo_Global. Why I oppose hate speech bill, even though I am hate speech victim -Wole Soyinka
To: <Edo_Global@yahoogroups.com>
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