By Anastasia Agunwa :
In preparation for the forthcoming general election which is to kick start with the presidential election in February 2023 and giving the competition that comes with political parties and their supporters, which tends to turn ugly, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has disclosed its move to establish a hate speech register to curb this menace.
The Executive Secretary, of the Commission, Chief Tony Ojukwu, SAN, at the Launch of Mobilising Voters for Election (MOVE), in Abuja on Monday, disclosed that the hate speech register will monitor and track hate speeches from all platforms across Nigeria.
He added that the commission will be working with social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and others platforms to fully establish a monitoring mechanism to achieve this objective.
He explained that the programme is aimed at ensuring the facilitation of citizens’ access to PVC; promoting citizens’ participation in the election through access to permanent voters cards (PVC) and ensuring law enforcement and security agencies adopt human rights principles in the protection of voters’ access and participation.
Ojukwu also said the commission will be working with relevant security agencies to ensure citizens’ easy access through the voting process.
While he noted that, the commission will ensure that the political campaigns focus on the protection of human rights, and ensure that during the voting process, voters’ rights are protected rather than intimidated.
Ojukwu said, “The NHRC is establishing a National Hate Speech Register which will monitor and track hate speeches from all platforms across Nigeria and deploy its enforcement mandate on perpetrators.
“The Commission will be working with Facebook, Twitter and other platforms to fully establish a monitoring mechanism to achieve this objective.”
He said, “The National Human Rights Commission on its part will fully advocate against the use of hate speech that but the Commission will not act in support of any effort that seeks to place spurious limitations on the right of freedom of expression.
“The onus is on those who seek to police speech, especially on social media to walk this fine line and strike the right balance in order to ensure that human rights are not further violated, whilst fighting hate speech.”
He noted that, as part of the project, the commission will ensure political parties and politicians integrate human rights commitments and messages in their various campaigns.
Explaining that plans are already on to design PVC observatory centres across the country to observe and collect difficulties encountered by citizens during collections of PVC.
The commission recalled that the three elections in 1999, 2003 and 2007 were trailed by complaints of irregularities ranging from logistical failure, and disenfranchisement to electoral fraud of all kinds.
This, he explained had negative consequences on the growth and sustenance of Nigeria’s democracy and laid the foundation for a subsequent radical shift in voter behaviour as evidenced in the apathy and regression in electoral participation that will be witnessed in subsequent elections.
He said, “Consequently, in the three subsequent elections in 2011, 2015 and 2019, citizens’ participation in the electoral process and voting plummeted, reaching to a historical low of 35% in the 2019 elections. According to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the percentage of registered voters who voted in 2011, 2015 and 2019 elections were 53.7, 43.6 per cent and 34.75 per cent respectively.
“Of the 84,004,084 registered voters in 2019, only 28,614,190 voters cast their ballots at the presidential election. In per capita terms, turnout in the 2019 election represents the lowest in the West African sub-region.”
“Statistics available to the Commission reveal that only around 10% of the voting-eligible public participated in the 2021 election in Anambra State. The lack of effective voter participation in Elections robs citizens of their fundamental role in a democracy, which is the freedom to choose their representatives.
“We believe that this MOVE project will enable the Commission to integrate human rights into democracy and as well ensure citizens’ participation in the upcoming 2023 general elections,” Ojukwu said.
