The era of fake news, targeted at perceived political enemies would soon come to an end in Nigeria.
This is coming on the backdrop of a Bill sponsored by Senator Ned Nwoko, the senator representing Delta north senatorial district at the National Assembly (NASS).
If the Bill scales through, it would regulate the activities of micro-blogging site, Twitter, now X, Facebook and other social media handles would have been checked.
Speaking to journalists on Monday November 4, 2024, at his country home of Idumuje-Ugboko in Aniocha north local government area of Delta State, the Chairman Senate Committee on Reparations and Repatriation, said if regulated, it would create jobs for the masses.
The Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Environment, disclosed that the Bill would give social media Chief Executive Officer (CEOs), the opportunity to establish their offices in Nigeria.
Hear him: “the actually regulation of social media in Nigeria. So, why do I think that social media needed to be regulated in Nigeria? Because social media is regulated in America, UK, Japan, Russia, it is regulated in every country in the world”.
He said X, Instagram, Facebook or any other social media platform operating freely in the UK. It is not possible.
“They made them to have office, two or three in the UK, in Island, France and elsewhere in Europe”.
According to him, the reasons are not far fetched, “it helps to create jobs. So, if Facebook is compelled to open an office in Lagos or Abuja or Asaba, you can imagine how many jobs that will be created by that singular act.
“And when they create jobs, it helps the economy because if they are employing 5, 000 people which they will, they will not pay them like the way they paying Nigeria, minimum wage, they will pay them same way they are paying their workers in America, Britain and anywhere because they are afraid that if they do anything less, it will be considered discriminatory because they worker here can go to the international court of Justice.
“It helps to create equality and that in itself helps to empower the employees.
“It will helps for the transfer of technology. When they are here, they will be operating within our space. Everything will be stepped down here. So, they are created work for our engineers and our lawyers and whatever it is that they doing in London or America, they will do same here.
“The third reason why we need to regulate them, is that when they Re here, they will contribute to our revenue through payment of taxes. Have you heard of Facebook paying taxes in Nigeria, no but when they are here, because of the high number of our population, there will be huge revenue.
“We are losing a lot of revenue because we don’t understand how to create wealth.
“There will be ease of litigation and jurisdiction. If you write about me or anybody for that matter and it is on Facebook or X, and I know that what you have written is fake and those platforms have offices in Nigeria, you can call or my lawyer will call them and tell them that what you have written is fake news. This is the correct version, once they are convinced that what you are saying is correct, they will pull down the story.
“That is only possible, if they have an office here”, stressing that it was time wasting, financially cumbersome to go to them in America to press charges unless one would engage the services of the local lawyers there as they are not qualified to practice America.
“What it means is that when fake news is written about people, they have no recourse to justice because those platforms are not here in Nigeria”, adding that when there is any litigation, because they are here in Nigeria, “they will respect any court judgement in Nigeria because they are within the jurisdiction of Nigeria “, he said.
