There was a man that tweeted some time ago; “let’s kill all the Igbos”, he has been arrested by the police and is to be charged in court for incitement and hate speech.
The police news update reads;
“Today 15th June 2023, the Osun Police Command has arrested one Kehinde Adesogba Adekusibe ‘m’ 28 years who violated the social media policy on hate speech. It could be recalled that, on 18th May 2023, the suspect, Kehinde Adekusibe, on his twitter handle, tweeted, “Let’s kill all the Igbos. Let’s flush them out of Yoruba lands. I hate these people with a passion. They are violent people. They are the worst. They hate us”.
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This arrest was an eye-opener to a lot of social media users who previously thought that “it is just social media” and they can say or post anything and nothing will happen even when what they post is a falsehood, defamatory, inciteful or criminal in nature.
The majority of Nigerian social media users are yet to know that although social media is yet to be totally or strictly regulated in Nigeria, it is loosely regulated to some extent and whatever you post or say while at it you will account for and if it’s criminal you will be made to defend it, defend the intent and defend yourself in court on it.
It is not just social media; Whatever you say on social media is on record and you can be charged for it. In fact, there are security agents whose job descriptions is to monitor social media usage, vet the users and their posts, identify threat made through social media; especially threat made against senior government officials and threat made against the country and quickly move in to arrest those who made that threat before they can execute it, even if the threat was made as a joke or a mere social media banter or cruise.
If you threaten to overthrow a government on social media you can be picked by the State Security Service and subsequently charged for treason or its attempt.
If you post on social media of your plans to organize people for “unpeaceful or violent protest” you can be picked for incitement and disturbance of public peace.
If you defame a person or lie against a person on social media, the person you defamed can file a civil suit against you for libel and the list goes on.
Someone all these serious posts are being made by users in the name of cruise, banter or joke but it had landed most of them in jail; the guy that was recently arrested for posting “Let’s kill all the Igbos” may likely raise the defence that he was joking or catching cruise in court but no judge will believe him or take that post to be just a regular social media bants or cruise.
Verify your information before posting and also be sure to post what you can be able to defend if the need comes up for you to defend it.