Column

Reflections On The Draft Social Media Code

Published

1 year ago

June 20, 2022

Malam Y Z Yau

By Y. Z. Yaú, CITAD

The long standing debate around the control of the social media in Nigeria, last week took a new turn with the release by NITDA of the draft Code of Practice for Interactive Computer Service Platforms/ Internet Intermediaries. Predictably, the Code has launched a new controversy around the motives of government for coming up with the code at this time of our history. One ground of suspicion about the intention of the code is that it is coming at about the time we are entering electioneering campaign period. Mischief says that this government that benefited greatly from the use of social media in the run up to the 2015 general elections when it was in opposition does not want to be hurt the same way it had used the same social media to hurt the campaign aspirations of the former ruling party.

But there have also been many initiatives in the last seven or so years by this government to control the use of the social media. They include the anti-social media bill, the hate speech bills, and many other efforts, including the suspension of the operations of Twitter in the country for six months. These have fuelled suspicions on the part of the public that this government is only too happy to make it difficult for citizens to make use of the social media.

The expressed tone of the code is to make the social media safe for citizens, which is a noble objective, but it is important to make sure in achieving a safer social media space, we do not make it impossible to use. There is no doubt that the social media is like any other technology, being misused in the country. This misuse manifests in various forms such as the spread of misinformation and disinformation, the proliferation of hate and dangerous speech, commodification of nudity, child pornography, sexual exploitation and human trafficking as well as recruitment of young people to violent gangs such as terrorists and bandits. There also other crimes such as scamming, impersonation, identity theft, etc. All these make the cyber space to be a site which many fear to venture.

These are however not peculiar or unique to social media or even to Nigeria. Every technology is capable of being used and misused and people are socialised into the socially useful uses of these technologies at an early contact these technologies so that they grow to know how to use them for the benefit of society. These are not the products or the consequences of social media. They predate it. They are in fact the projection of the offline versions of these crimes. That for centuries we have not been able to stamp them out means that it will be naive to think that they can just be eradicated by certain codes. Codes do help but not everything can be cured by codes. And many of the ills of social media are of that nature. They require entirely different approach.

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Admittedly the ills of the social media have been counterproductive to the essence of social media. But it will not work by throwing the baby with the bathwater. Moreover, not all users of social media indulge in these anti-social uses. In reality, very few people engage in these. However, this is not to say that what the small minority does is not worrisome. In the place I work, we have spent considerable length of time fighting many of those. For instance, since 2014, we having running an observatory for monitoring and countering hate speech in the country. We have also engaged in sensitization programmes to enlighten and alert Nigerians about the dangers of hate speech and what we could collectively do to sanitize the cyber space of these. We are also identifying and countering fake news, misinformation and disinformation as well as combating gender violence online. In all these, we have sought the partnership of all stakeholders, including government, to develop national strategies to deal with these issue, drawing from global best practices.

However, government discourse of the problem tends to focus on control than on education and empowering citizens to know their limits of their freedom which would be most helpful and it is from this perspective that I see the weaknesses of the code as a solution. The code is sweeping in many of its assumptions and prescriptions,
Take for example, it wants to criminalize platforms providing space for the crimes of the users. Had that road been taken, the internet as we know it today will not have existed. Following this logic of pushing the burden of misuse of the users on the platform providers, one of the provisions of the code says that “A Platform must acknowledge the receipt of the complaint and take down the content within 24 hours”. This gives the government the challenged power to make unilateral determination and classify items and to be the judge and prosecutor. Platform provider operate on a multi-layered architecture that requires escalation processing for a decision to be reached. Much of the issues that go to the top are those about interpretation and most cannot be resolved within 24 hours unless the intention is to say that whatever the government says it does not want, becomes the law that cannot be contested nor be subject to independent and neutral interpretation. And this can easily lead to abuse. Even on seemingly settled matter of deleting nudity, the code does not make exceptions. For instance, certain levels of nudity are needed for educational purposes. Certain nudity could be used to mobilize against certain crimes and to raise awareness, so when you make a no-exception case, the government simply makes it difficult to use relevant images for these purposes.

There are provisions also that seek to outsource the functions of government to the platform providers. One of these says that they should “Exercise due diligence to ensure that no unlawful content is uploaded to their Platform”. Such a task is the responsibility of the police and other law enforcement agencies. Platform providers are not content providers or owners and cannot have the capacity to carry out such due diligence to ensure that the over billions of users do not upload “unlawful” content. Another says that platform providers should “Make provision for verifying official government accounts and authorised government agencies”. This is the responsibility of government through its relevant agencies. If government is unable to come up with an enforceable guideline for the use of social media by its agents and officers, it should not push that burden to third parties.

The elements of control-thinking can also be seen when vague terms are used. For instance, we all know that certain content could cause psychological harm to people. But there is no scale about psychological pains and persons react differently, having different thresholds of being affected. Without certain rules to establish levels of pains, this can lead to arbitrariness. If I write that a minister has been involved in corrupt deals, he or she can plead “psychological harm” and both myself and the provider are in trouble.

The code also deploys a stacking technique; thus loading offenses of different nature over a single line. Take for instance article 2 © of part 11 which requires platforms to inform users not to create, publish, promote, modify, transmit, store or share any content or information that “is defamatory, libellous, pornographic, revenge porn, bullying, harassing, obscene, encouraging money laundering, exploiting a child, fraud, violence, or inconsistent with Nigeria’s laws and public order”. Clearly libel and defamation are offenses that have clear laws whether they are committed offline or online. So why add them here? They can be the herring to frighten users of social media.

Even innocuous terms as “false or misleading” are difficult to define. Is an item misleading because of intent or due to the effect? If I put a content and someone feels misled, will that be misleading simply because someone thinks it is misleading, perhaps due his (mis)interpretation? Or because he or she draws the wrong conclusion? Or because of the materiality of the item? Being misled is not a straight cause and effect logic. As for falsity, it can also be the test of limit to access to what counter factuality that comes to live after publication. In other words, a material could be true at the point of publication and becomes false after publication. In this case there was no intent to publish false item and in this case, no false information was published even if by the time it is read, it is not no longer true.

Finally, it seeks to order platforms to Preserve any information concerning a person that is no longer a user of a Platform due to withdrawal or termination of registration, or for any other reason. This has the effort of pre-empting the efforts to ensure the right to forget. When information about people who are they no longer users of a platform is forced be retained, it would be used somehow and breach not all their right to forget but also their privacy,

One way to think about the code is to recognize that the digital space is an extension of our civic space. The civic space is what materialises our humanity and citizenship, it is the embodiment of our human rights, this been so, the digital space is also a concretization of these rights, their projection online. The notion of a digital civic spec presupposes a regime of digital rights that are the projection of our offline human rights. They include the right to freedom of expression, the right to organization, and more importantly, the right to privacy. Many of these crimes we see are derogation of these rights. Many commit these the infractions that the code lists because they do not see their codification to protect citizens from digital abuse.

Government itself has been guilty of abuse the digital rights of citizens through intrusive digital surveillance and failure to ensure that all citizens have access to digital space.

In this sense, the best government is best advised to get the Digital Rights Bill passed and signed. This has a wholesome provision of rights and responsibilities along with measures for enforcement rather than limits its gaze on criminalization which seems to be the tone of the Code. This will help both government and citizens as well as the platform providers. in the end, it will cost less and achieve more when government focuses on educating users than in prosecuting them. There are useful parts to the Code but its underlying assumptions and prescriptions are suspect and subject to being abused. By all means let the providers by corporate citizens of this country with clear responsibilities but we as citizens also want our freedom be respected.

Column

The ECOWAS-NIGER WAR, “STILL BOOTING”? By Haruna Adamu Hadejia

Published

4 weeks ago

September 2, 2023

Nigerian Tracker

Haruna Adamu Hadejia

The republic of Niger has become a point of reference in these days, probably as a new world “laboratory” for sovereignty test. It has shown the world that African countries are beginning to resist the western powers’ long and assumed perpetual dictatorship. Many people around the world have defined the republic of Niger and Africa in general as paupers until recently.
Lately, France shuns the ultimatum given by Military Junta in Niger for france’s envoy to exit. One wonders, why did they want to stick? While on one hand, the ECOWAS seems to be booting (undecided) on the possibility of; strike or not to strike. The hypothesis (Ho) and (H1) on the war remain unclear while sanction is quietly working in Niger with some adverse effect on both Niger and specifically north western part of Nigeria largely on economy.

Many people postulates that the ECOWAS formation in (1975) was facilitated by the western world just to protect their interest; get advice and decisions from them and simply implement what they want. Many were of the opinion that even the ultimatum given by ECOWAS to Niger was engineered by the western world.

The worrying issue before the western world and ECOWAS in particular in my opinion is that, they have not yet found genuine coefficient of staging war as they intended to do. Why? Because the citizens of Niger not necessarily the MILITARY simply say “NO, allow us to solve our own problems” coupled with the brethren support from neighboring African nations around Niger such as Mali. This coalition really angers the west and the 11 countries out of 15 in ECOWAS. Niger also gained additional sympathy from other parts of the world and has this has opened up a platform for all nations to rediscover or re-trace their independence.
It was reported that, the Presidents of Egypt and Algeria advised the ECOWAS not to venture into war. They have the bitter experience of what it takes to be at war front, they still have some left over of such happenings in their countries.

Our President is of course, at the center of ECOWAS BEING ITS CURRENT Chair and also the President of Nigeria which is well respected in the world. However, with the present on-going rancor in Niger we are beginning to respectfully shrink in the eyes of some nations especially our close friend, Niger who respects us more than any nation in the world. But today, the algorithm has changed. Citizens of Niger knew only Nigeria not ECOWAS. Should anything happen to the citizens, their fingers will only point at Nigerians being their brothers and not the whole of ECOWAS. How do we recover such respect and prevent further spill of the trust they have in us??

As postulated in my last publication of August 5 by Kano online Times, the giant nations have other ways to deal with ECOWAS in the event that the war didn’t take place. One of them has started coming up; the world bank is threatening to freeze the accounts of ECOWAS if they couldn’t execute this war. Possible compressing of foreign Aids to ECOWAS, introduction of some strong financial and economic policies on ECOWAS, or what?

Again, what would it look like now that, Prigozhin the leader of private security Wagner organization of Kremlin is dead? This is someone that was smelled to be in Africa to contract the war before his death. Will the US, France and their allies have a dinner for having at least one their blockages being removed? Similarly, what is Putin going to do differently now that Prigozhin is dead; perhaps become a stronger independent contractor to solely fight for and on behalf of the Niger Junta in the name of “liberation” and love for them while tapping their uranium which they will be willing to sell at lesser proceeds? Yeah, this could aptly be forecast as another opportunity for Putin to cheaply annex Nigeria once kremlin steps into Niger.

My argument is that, all these self-anointed saviors of Africa are truly not to be trusted and must not be trusted. We will only breathe independent air thoroughly if all outsiders can stay clear of Africa and allow us to drive our processes and the possibility of achieving this is only when our leaders fairly lead us.
Recounting from the military takeover of power in Niger up to the time of border closure between Nigeria and Niger, we understand that many states all in the Northern Nigeria are concerned in many ways. Already, the war is subconsciously taking place politically, economically, socially. Recent visit to Maigatari market an export processing zone (border with Niger in Jigawa state) shows how deserted the market is. There is skew negatively of livestock, grains and other products, the mass exodus being witnessed on weekly basis by people from across the federation is evidently a sign of setback. The Machina market (in Yobe state) is equally going down by the day. The same story in Jibiya of Katsina state, the many market stalls are largely scanty because the occupants are no longer using them coupled with the insecurity there and no one to maintain the thatch sheds due to poor turnout of people for commercial activities. Summarily, the IGR of the local governments bordering Niger must have recorded significant losses in this respect.

Socially, it will take time to heal the wound created as a result of such border closure. The brothers and sisters that married from both countries can no longer see or trade with each other, just like South and North Korea, until such a time when the border is opened. What a distress!

At federal level, Nigerians are interested to know how much the country has economically lost from the electricity cut to Niger, custom and excise duty and from other sources such as money markets. Nigeria but North is being tested economically and socially???
The proverbial expression of Pandora must not be allowed to have a pIace in our midst, meaning a source of endless complications or trouble arising from simple miscalculation should not in a haste be used to jeopardize not only historical but sustainable relationship with our neighbor. Let our leaders not subject us to a test tube baby.

Simply, we all understand that ECOWAS is technologically “booting” to come up with alternative measures to handle the situation. After this scenario, what type of punishment will the west introduce to deal with us (citizens) again? I once said that the west, have multiple approaches to handle us perpetually and this must be resisted. This is the scenario Nigeria (Africans) have been subjected. The west is not willing to allow us to rest.

We must see this present circumstance as an attempt to change Africa heritage by the west while the time for resistance by Africans has finally arrived. I wish late Gawo Filinge of Niger, Aminu Kano, Sa’adu Zungur and similar social movers are alive just to analyze the on-going silent sanction on Niger and go back to sleep. Am sure, they will encourage Nigeria-Niger to be strong and endure the struggle. Because the more courage they have, the tendency for becoming greater in future as a result of being resilient.

Unknown to many, this tussle has opened doors of hope for Niger republic such as the need for them to think of generating their own power plant, identify other economic countries for ties to transact business and take advantage of currency swap, rediscover and export their unique mineral (uranium) for foreign exchange, introduce their own currency for trade and also integrate their culture as part of income generating avenue. They can harvest more from their national patriotism as exhibited by the recent solidarity demonstrations enjoyed by the new government from the citizens. On the other hand, Nigeria must intensify efforts to look inward and solidify its strategic path to protect our sovereignty. Though, these processes are quite starving and require sacrifice. Indeed, citizens must sacrifice to get things fixed.

A twitter friend called “Steve” responded to my early post 72 hours ago that, “Nigeria needs to invade asap, do not let Niger become base for Russia to invade Nigeria, Russia and China are coming for control and the gold”. This statement of his made me crazy and had to drop my pen and rest for a while before continued with my memo. If this notion of him is to be interpreted right, then my earlier opinion that we shouldn’t trust any of the “power holders” has been validated.

One nagging issue that keeps bugging some of the progressives around is must we be submissive to them? They just wanted to traced back what they mistakenly left behind during colonization and introduce a new scientific approach of modern colonization.

While “ba’a sauke girki ba”, another country in Africa has just thrown out civilian government in the republic of Gabon, Ali Bongo who has been in power since 2009 after winning third term election on last Saturday’s poll, August 26, 2023.

As am writing this piece, another episode happened in Rwanda a country which just hosted the “capacity building session” for our Nigeria’s Governors last week supported by the UN, with President Paul Kagame in office since year 2000 (23 years) for God’s sake, retires multiple senior army officers including influential General called James Kabarebe shortly after he learnt about military take-over in Gabon. Why is it happening now? Is Paul not sending a signal that he has all been driving wrong? Who influenced him to do this? In the interest of Rwanda which suffered irrecoverable genocide years ago or western interest? All these confusions must be justified by the power that be.

By whatever definition, Africa must not relegate itself in the eyes of the so-called super powers, taking advantage of telling us that we are corrupt while they created, initiated, seed and nurtured the basis for corruption from kindergarten to tertiary level of our political class.

Afterall, all nations can be super. They should be reminded that, if they earlier used a generic template to define all Africans, time has come to review the template after centuries and re-allocate “specific” ledger to each nation.

I come in peace!

Haruna Adamu Hadejia, a journalist and public affairs analyst, wrote this piece from Dutse, Jigawa State.

Column

Ministerial Nominee’s: Between Fair Proportions and Political Relevance.

Published

2 months ago

August 17, 2023

Nigerian Tracker

By Abubakar Sadiq Dauda

I will start with the following highlights:

Deputy Senate President,
Speaker House of Representatives,
National Chairmanship,
5 Senior Ministers,
5 Junior Ministers, were all allocated to the Northwest Geo-political zone, which happens to be the powerhouse of Northern politics.

Kano got the National Chairmanship position which doesn’t add any capital developmental stride to the state or region. That gave birth to the appointment of two of its indigenes as Junior Ministers because the leader of the party in the state is in no position to shout injustice since he graciously accepted a role meant for the North-central bloc.

Kaduna on the other hand, has a Speaker, thus one Ministerial nominee was picked. A fair share if u ask me. However, one of our very best, picked from this very North side (El-Rufai) was frustrated, thus he lost interest. Not his own individual loss, but our own collective loss.

Though at a time, he once said, the only way for the party and the President to pay him for his effort, is to give one of his own (Iyan Zazzau), the office of the speaker, which ought to have gone to the North-central. El-rufai request was graciously honoured. We may cry and wail but agreement is agreement.

Our very own greed and miscalculation will keep consuming us in terms of our relevance politically, and the development of the North as a whole. Once the Northwest lost relevance and control, the entire North will be on its knees.

Certainly, we were not shortchanged, we got outsmarted, that has always been the case whenever power shifts to the South.

Morally, the North got its own fair share. Politically, it got nailed, yet again!

Sadiq is a political observer, writes from Kano, Nigeria. Can be reached via sadiqdauda55@gmail.com

Column

Emefiele : The Embarassing End Of Ego.

Published

4 months ago

June 10, 2023

Nigerian Tracker

Godwin Emefeile , Suspended CBN Governor

By Bala Ibrahim.

It was Sir Hubert Henderson, the British economist and Liberal Party politician that said, there is a merit in being unimportant, which he paraphrased in a book under the caption, “The Importance of Being Unimportant.” Sir Henderson expressed the idea that, under the right conditions, it is desirable to be a very small part of something big. One needs not be an expert in English language to understand that Sir Henderson was talking about the goodness or distinction of modesty, particularly with respect to the righteousness of rectitude and the enviable quality of being moderate in behaviour. And precisely that is the quality that I think is missing in the displayed attitude of the now suspended Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank, Chief, Godwin Emefiele.

Since yesterday Friday, the media has been agog with the story that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has suspended the Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, from office immediately. The news was conveyed in a statement by Willie Bassey, Director of Information at the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation. The statement said Emefiele’s suspension is sequel to the ongoing investigation of his office and the planned reforms in the economy’s financial sector.

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Wow! No sooner than I read the breaking news, than my mind went to some video clips, which went viral on the social media, wherein the now deposed and detained Emefiele was basking and boasting, in a manner that depicted him as a man thinking that he is too important to even obey the law. Yes, just few days back, perhaps because of the deceitful potentiality of the paraphernalia of power, Emefiele refused to reckon with the meaning of vanity, by exuding excessive pride in the discharge of duty, and the way and manner he carried himself. I am sure effective from last night, circumstances must have humbled him, and compulsorily compelled him to understand the meaning of the embarrassing end of ego.

Before he was reportedly seized
(rightly or wrongly) by operatives of the Department of State Security, DSS, Mr. Emefiele was directed to immediately hand over the affairs of his office to the Deputy Governor (Operations), who will act as the Central Bank Governor, pending the conclusion of the investigation and the reforms. Although a friend and old classmate of mine, who happened to have worked with Emefiele, told me indeed Emefiele read Agric. Economics at the University, his actions seem at variance with the core principles of the mission of producing graduates of that discipline.

Emefiele was particularly forgetful of the temporariness of power, as he portrayed himself as an arrogantly bad student of history, by refusing to borrow a leaf from the situation of his predecessor, and the circumstances that brought him to power.

Godwin Emefiele assumed office in the year 2014, pursuant to the suspension and subsequent termination of the appointment of Emir Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, by the then President of Nigeria, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.

Although the social media is parading various allegations as the charges that are being put forward against him by the DSS, one can not come to any conclusion until he is formally charged to court. However, as a follower of events, I can attest to the torture visited on the people, through his economic cruelty, inhumanity and blatant brutality, in the brazen cash confiscation policy.

Under an economically senseless, and obviously wickedly intended plan, many Nigerians were pushed to depression, as they queued up in front of empty ATM machines for weeks, in the desperate move of scouring for their legitimately earned cash, which were seized by Emefiele and his cohorts. The media was awash with saddening stories of the pain and anguish of people, who were forced to lose their loved relations and friends, or compelled to go through hell in the search for healthcare, as a result of the cash crunch.

Agonizing stories made the rounds, of how some medical facilities refused to offer emergency treatment to patients unless cash payment was made, even when they were aware of the dire circumstances of the patient and the cash crunch situation of the country. Indeed Emefiele forced a frightening fragility on the financial subconscious of many Nigerians, yours truly inclusive.

In the light of the submissions of Hon.Gudaji Kazaure, who alleged that, by virtue of his position as the Governor of the Central Bank, Emefiele was easily the most powerful person in the country, who could turn an indigent person into a billionaire in hours, and he had evidences to support the accusation that he had arbitrarily abused that privilege, I think, many Nigerians would rejoice with the embarrassing end to his revulsive ego.

Had Mr.Emefiele learnt a lesson from Sir Hubert Henderson, on the importance of being unimportant, perhaps, perhaps, he would have behaved with a better degree of humility. But now, the phrase on the lips of many is, good riddance to bad rubbish.

May God give President Bola Ahmed Tinubu more strength and spirit to succeed, ameen.