Nigeria: Hate Speech - in Support of Limit

24 August 2017
opinion

Nigerian leaders have recently been incensed by the amount of hate speech permeating the public space ever since the ultimatum issued by the hitherto obscure Arewa Youths Forum to Igbos living in the North to vacate within a specified time frame. First it was the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo spleening his concern, stressing that it would be criminalized as an act of terrorism at a national security seminar organized by the Department of State Security. On return, President Muhammadu Buhari also buttressed this commitment by further registering his unhappiness thus while addressing the nation for the first time after long stay in London. By sheer coincidence, almost all the national dailies of last Monday (August 21st) stressed that aspect of the speech through front page banner headlines with one revealing that a court for specifically adjudicating the matter is in the offing.

Hate speech deals with written or verbal attack on individuals and groups on account of their race, religion, gender, ethnicity or other demographic indicators which is capable of exciting hostility, discrimination and/or violence. Violence, on the other hand, can be direct, structural or cultural. The European Court of Human Rights defines hate speech as "all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify racial hatred, xenophobia, anti-Semitism or other forms of hatred based on intolerance, including intolerance expressed by aggressive nationalism and ethnocentrism, discrimination and hostility towards minorities, migrants and people of immigrant origin."

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