Social media users are reacting to the new rules by Amnesty International protecting President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on social media.
Amnesty International in a recent statement, said critics of the President risk a three-year jail term for condemning the president. He went on to explain further the implications of social media regulations in a series of tweets on Saturday, the Human Rights Organization said,
“the social media regulation law keenly pushed by Nigerian politicians is set to be subject to vague and broad interpretations and will impose incredibly harsh punishments simply for criticizing the authorities.”
Amnesty International said, “Social media users will be punished for freely expressing their opinions. Govt. can arbitrarily shut down the internet and limit access to social media. Criticizing the government will be punishable with penalties of up to three years in prison.”
See comments from social media users below,
One Dinma of Lagos wrote, “So basically, freedom of speech is allowed but freedom after speech is not guaranteed
One Idu1m wrote, “No fee for anybody including certificate forger
One Tee Bong wrote, “This is dictatorship, not democracy
One I Am Black Bharbie wrote, “So what happened to Freedom of Speech? We’re literally in a local person
One Eva Comedy wrote, “Hope the jail is big enough to contain everybody bcos 90% citizens are going in
One Books Fever wrote, “The more we Gold our hands and do nothing, the more we go dey run from poor to poorest to poorest. It’s a good day to get bookssssss
One I Am A medium wrote, “I don go criticize the amnesty international for their page Oloriburuku
One Sha Mu81 wrote, “But Dem dey come online come do campaign”.
This is coming hours after the Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila called for social media regulation describing it as a menace.
Carpeting him, Mr Macaroni shared screenshots of old tweets from Gbajabiamila which dated back to 2014, where he slammed previous governments, calling them Vagabond and Barbarians. He noted how social media wasn’t a menace to him then, but now that he is Chief of Staff, he realizes that social media is a menace.
Calling him hypocritical, he stated that it has become clear that he and his government, which he called desperate see Nigerians as imbeciles.
