A chieftain of the All
Progressives Congress (APC) in Niger State and a former Commissioner for
Information, Mr. Jonathan Tsado Vatsa has said that the ruling party
has no moral right to sponsor the hate speech bill or any law for that
matter that seek to gag the press.
Speaking at the Social Media
Summit in Minna, organised by the Progressive Media Practitioners (PMP),
Vatsa said the ruling APC benefitted immensely “from this thing we call
hate speech” “Before 2015, I can remember, we used all forms of
propaganda against the ruling PDP, we said anything to make sure that
the people hated the party.
“Our focus at that time was to ensure
that we discredited the then ruling party and we won. We should not be
afraid of the poison we gave PDP that time.
“Personally I will
not be a party to a law that will gag the press. In some other climes,
people would have commenced the process of recalling the sponsor of that
bill,” Vatsa asserted.
He commended former Military President,
General Ibrahim Babangida for throwing his weight behind those opposed
to the bill and advised those behind the bill to sponsor bills that will
impact positively on ordinary Nigerians.
The convener of the
summit, Prince Daniel Atori in his welcome address, called on President
Muhammadu Buhari to impress upon the lawmakers on the need for them to
provide dividends of democracy to the people rather than embarking on a
wild goose chase of making laws that are of no benefit to the people.
No comments
Post a Comment