Between preposterous penalty and scofflaw

Last week, the federal government in its wisdom made stiffer the penalty for hate speech by slamming a heavy fine against whoever is found guilty of inciting the public against the government. Through the information minister, it was announced that whoever makes any statement or publication having a seditious intention, calculated to bring hatred, contempt or excite disaffection against the government shall not only be sanctioned but be made to pay a fine of N5 million, which hitherto was N50,000.

Perhaps, it can be deduced that the government’s action is premeditated on its move to suppress people’s agitation and the raging idea of civil uprising against a blatantly failed government. This increment, to every dispassionate political observer would read and point to the fact that this is a telltale admission that the APC-led government is hounded by the fear of being critically tongue-lashed as a result of massive corrupt practices and other malfeasance that have characterised its government.

There are some distressing questions to ask here; firstly, why would a democratic government choose suppression over vociferating constructive criticisms from the helpless masses? On what basis would a self-acclaimed all-inclusive government choose to flex muscles with haplessly despair citizens whose collective wealth has been serially embezzled by a recycling group of mediocre?

What exactly is the government‘s covetous motive behind the ineffectual increase in the penalty against hate speech? Does it have a heinous meaning, which strongly I believe goes beyond the literal interpretation of the law of sedition; where hate speech falls? What more can be more necessitating “hate speech” where one lives in a society where there is no hope of bringing to justice those government functionaries and policy makers that unashamedly indulge in official profligacy, nepotism, non-accountability, injustice, unethical policies, perjury and forgery and other forms of ills that undermine, bury and obliterate any glimmer of hope among the citizens? The guileless truth is that, this increment in the amount of penalty for hate speech is a sheer display of government’s cavalier attitude to the sordid reality of the current state of Nigeria and Nigerians, and at best be described as it being suspicious and gripped by fear of being upstaged by the radical agenda called revolution now. More so, the truth however is also that when a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he would be left with no choice but to become an outlaw. Rather than being cowed by the 5 million naira fine, when the push comes to shove, the citizens will surely come to term with the fact that the government is annoyingly averse to socioconstructive criticisms. It thus resorts to unpopular attempt to stifle the masses and this definitely cannot be a welcome regulation law in a society who’s more than 80% of its citizens are leaving in staggering penury amidst opulence.

Without mincing words, any authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, filter to bruise than polish. History has shown that every draconic government has natural aversion for press freedom and freedom of expression. They in view of this cynically choose to grandstand and play to the gallery by imposing harsh legislation and bogus fine against whoever muse or propagate any idea that tends to alert the suppressed masses, who are at the receiving end of their anti-people’s government. Their hammer is raised against any voice that tends to speak against their avaricious dispositions and moves that are basically geared towards short-changing, siphoning and mismanaging of the common wealth. In their bid to suppress the impending tsunami from the oppressors, they hide under the guise of the exception to the freedom of speech and expression under section 39(3) of the 1999 CFRN and thus cash in on this just to make effective their vendetta and cover their undoing and unpopularity.

During the reign of Tiberius (14-37 C E) it is on record that no tolerance was shown toward those who spoke out against the emperor or his policies. More often, successive government in Nigeria leverage on the constitutional power given under section 45 of the constitution to censor publication and by so doing take advantage of that to clamp down on whoever is perceived to be against antipeople’s policies. They in the course of that inadvertently substantiate the self evident-truth that the government is militarily adorned but masquerading as democracy.

Under the criminal justice system, theories of punishment are anchored on some fundamental approaches that are aimed at controlling the spate of crime in the society. The simple theory is that, when it comes to criminal sanctions, what people believe to be appropriate is largely determined by the theory of punishment to which they subscribe. This portends that people tend to agree with the theory of punishment that is most likely to generate the outcome they believe is the correct one. This system of beliefs about the purposes of punishment often spills over into the political arena. It has been canvassed often that, politics and correctional policies are intricately related, much more so that many of the changes seen in correctional policies in most of the advanced countries are a reflection of the political climate of the day. Criminal sentencing had long been taken away from the legislation, and sadly political rhetoric in Nigeria seems to be about getting tough on political class who are on the other side or poor citizens with antagonistic vociferating ideas, that are laden with constructive criticisms. Rather than making correctional goals based on retribution, incapacitation and deterrence, rehabilitation motive has been strongly targeted toward further silencing the oppressed or purely for personal vendetta.

Let me avert our mind to Jeremy Bentham Utilitarian theory called Rational Choice Theory. This theory is the simple idea that people think about committing a crime before they do it. If the rewards of the crime outweigh the punishment, then they rather choose to propagate their thoughts against government’s ineptitude, cluelessness, embezzlement and all forms of breach of public trust which of course pose severe danger to their very well being than being silent by any fictitious monetary sanction. So, if the government likes, let it multiply the fine to any grimorous amount, this crass increment in the fine against government’s incompetence and loathe for criticism that is surreptitiously termed “hate speech” would still remain within the class of specific deterrence which in criminology does not stop a revolutionary idea against a successive underperforming government. In fact, this would further fertilize the idea among the oppressed Nigerians when life becomes too unbearable.

What then is the nexus between preposterous penalty and scofflaw? The simple answer is that they are both anomalies of the same class, though standing in different positions. They both lead to calamity and bring to polity undesired result called recidivism - a relapse into crime which makes those who are punished by vexatious fines to be more reoffended at a very high rate. Perhaps, to a far greater complexity and disorderliness, a society studded with recidivists is naturally prone to upheaval, catastrophe, social unrest and conflagration which shall spare no one including the political mafia.

Advisedly, rather than fighting the people’s revolutionary ideology and constructive criticisms by slamming preposterous fine, the Nigerian government should admit its failure and quickly think of purging itself of the protracted breach of social contracts between it and its citizens. Furthermore, it must be realistically, frontally and pragmatically ready to tackle the lingering rots in the system, which have been the sole reasons why people resort to fuming “hate speeches”.

Balogun, a Lagos based legal practitioner and human rights advocate, wrote from Lagos