Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has said that the government of President Muhammadu Buhari respects the right of every Nigerian to freely express himself under the democratic government being practiced, but that freedom of expression has its own limitation.
Professor Osinbajo, who was apparently responding to the argument by Nnamdi Kanu’s Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) that the fight for Biafran Republic was part of the freedom of expression, said that hate speech can never be allowed to thrive in the guise of freedom of expression.
The acting President, who was addressing governors from 36 states at one of the consultative meetings with stakeholders on the threat to national unity, insisted that federal government would not allow anybody to hide under the canopy of freedom of expression to divide this country.
He fingered politicians in the agitation for the division of Nigeria, even as he appealed that against politicizing anything that has to do with security.
Full text of the Acting President’s remarks is reproduced here:
We must not allow the careless use of words, careless expressions that may degenerate into crisis
We are a people that like to talk and we express ourselves loudly but it is expected for us to recognize that it is those same words that can cause conflagration, that can unfortunately lead to calamity. We must be careful of how we express ourselves.
What we have seen in recent times is that some of the languages used have tended to degenerate badly and I think that we must begin to speak up against some these things and ensure that we protect our democracy and our nation from the hands of rhetorics that may just divide us
From all of the consultations, we have had all agreed on certain issues
We agreed that Nigeria’s unity should not be taken for granted, no one wants to see us go done the path of bloodshed or war.
We also agreed on the permanency of the Nigerian constitution, that 1999 constitution is the basis for our unity. It is the basis for the legal contract that exists between all of us.
Our meetings were frank and open as I hope this will be, we were able to agree on most of the critical issues that were discussed and in most cases changed perceptions that may have been long embedded in their minds. We also agreed that under no circumstances should we condone hateful speeches and that government should take all steps necessary to bring to book all those who preach violence, in particular the kind of expressions of dissent that can cause violence. We also agreed that we need to do more to engage our youth productively, create some jobs, multiply the economic opportunities available.
More importantly we agreed on the need for leaders to speak out forcefully to counter divisive speech or any kind of woe mongering, we agreed that leaders at all levels speak out forcefully against any kind of divisiveness or divisive speech. And we expect that our political leaders will do so without waiting to be prompted. All of those who spoke to felt that sometimes when leaders do not speak up promptly it always results in degeneration no matter what the problem may be.
This applied to both the statement made by the young people in the South East as well as the youth in the Northern states. We discovered there was a need for much greater resonance in the way that these things are done and for the leaders to speak up more forcefully. We believe that if the leaders do not speak up forcefully enough if for any reason matters are allowed to degenerate, not only does leadership loose their legitimacy, they run the risk of things going completely out control.
He commended the leaders from the North and South for their openness at the consultations stating “that they were extremely responsible even in their criticisms of what they felt were issues that should have been better handled. I think that their criticisms were fair and balanced. I must commend them for their sense of responsibility and their leadership.
Going back to some of what was said, some of the issues that came up and I hope that we will discuss in greater details are the issues around the herdsmen and farmers crisis, especially the way that some of these have resulted in flashpoint across the country. We started
those discussions during the consultations we had and I believe that we will be able to deepen those discussions in our meeting and possibly hold a more expanded meeting where we will be to take a closer look at it. It is absolutely important that we are able to make lasting and satisfactory solutions to these problems.
Ofcourse the problems are multidimensional but the states have a very important role to play especially because they are in control of land in their territories.
I must say that I trust that all must all of us appreciate the need to show greater unity of purpose and the determination to work together to resolve various challenges that arise on a constant basis for the benefit of all Nigerians regardless of party affiliations.
We must resist the temptation to play politics especially with matters of security, but to reach for simplistic narratives that might be originally expedient and satisfying but false, deceiving and sometimes unhealthy to proper understanding of the issues. Sometimes intensions are perceived on the account of the fact that they have wrong perception about a particular thing. I think it is in our place to ensure that we dig down the fact and ensure that people are given the fact and ensure that we don’t colour them with politics. [myad]
