Social Media Bill: Senate Suspends Public Hearing Till 2020

The Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters has suspended further legislative actions on the controversial anti-social media bill sponsored by Senator Musa Sani till January next year.

Punch reports that the decision was not unconnected with the mixed feelings expressed by members of the 14-member Senate panel during their maiden meeting on the issue. The members are all lawyers.

The senators were said to have cautioned themselves and stressed the need to ensure a wide consultation on the issue.

They agreed to make sure that voices of all critical stakeholders connected to the proposed legislation were adequately captured and represented in their report.

Although the deadline given the committee by the leadership of the Senate to submit its report would elapse this week, members of the panel who spoke with our correspondent on condition of anonymity said they were not in a hurry to work on the bill.

A member of the committee said, “We have agreed, tentatively, to fix the public hearing for January. We have to be careful so as not to be on the wrong side of history. We are already identifying the various stakeholders who have spoken on the issue as individuals, groups or institutions. We will send letters of invitations to them.

“We will also do a media publication inviting members of the public to the public hearing with their written submissions so that we would capture all their views. We need to ensure that the media and the civil society groups who are in the forefront of the agitation against the bill, come around to defend their position.

“It is when this is done that we will be able to convince Nigerians that we have done the right thing.”

Another member of the panel assured Nigerians that the committee was not in a hurry to present its report for consideration.

He said, “Let me assure Nigerians that we will leave no stone unturned as far as the bill is concerned. It is a very important bill and we must ensure that necessary things are done to get the contributions of the people that would be reflected in our report.

“Since we would round off legislative activities for the year next (this) week, we have decided to shift the public hearing to January. This will also enable more stakeholders to participate. The senators would have been around too. We will definitely give longer notice and everybody would be carried along.”

Attempts to speak with the chairman of the committee, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, on the issue did not succeed as he had yet to respond to a text message sent to him as of the time of filing this report.

Bamidele had penultimate week told our correspondent that his panel would fix a date for the public hearing on the bill last week. He said relevant stakeholders would be given sufficient notices because of the interest that the proposed legislation had generated.

He had also explained that his panel would hold meetings with the sponsor of the bill, Senator Musa Sani, and the leadership of the National Assembly before convening the public hearing.

The controversial bill, which seeks to make provisions for the protection from Internet falsehood and manipulations and other related matters, passed the second reading on the floor of the Senate last month.

The bill, among other provisions, prescribed a three-month jail term and a fine up to N10m for individuals or corporate firms that would run afoul of its provisions, when signed into law.

Punch reports…