Senator Ned Nwoko Proposes Bill To Regulate Social Media Platforms In Nigeria

BY FRED ODU/KENNETH ORUSI

Senator Ned Nwoko, representing Delta North senatorial district in the National Assembly and Chairman Senate Committee on Reparations and Repatriation, has proposed the regulation of social media platforms in Nigeria as is applicable to the developed countries of the world.

Senator Nwoko, whose proposal had been pencilled down in a bill now before the National Assembly, said Nigeria should not continue to allow Facebook, X, Instagram and other social media platforms to operate for free with reckless abandon, giving the country bad image and getting away with it.

The federal lawmaker spoke on Monday with journalists at his Idumuje-Ugboko country home in Aniocha North local government area of Delta state.

If the bill scales through the floor of the senate, it would regulate the activities of micro-blogging site, Twitter, now X, Facebook and other social media platforms would be put on check.

“So, why do I think that social media needed to be regulated in Nigeria?”, he asked. “The answe is simple. Social media is regulated in America, UK, Japan, Russia, it is regulated in every country of the world. They made them to have offices, two or three in the UK, in Island, France and elsewhere in Europe.

“It will help for the transfer of technology. When they are here, they will operate within our space. Everything will be stepped down here. So, they will create work for our engineers and lawyers and whatever it is that they are doing in London or America, they will do same here.

“The third reason why we need to regulate them, is that when they are 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.

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“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 article. That is only possible if they have offices here in Nigeria ”

He added: “It will be time wasting and financially cumbersome to go to them in America to press charges unless one would engage the services of the local lawyers there as the lawyers here are not qualified to practice in America.

“What this means is that when fake news is written about people, they have no recourse to justice because those platforms are not here in Nigeria. But if they have offices here, they will respect any court judgement in Nigeria because they are within the jurisdiction of Nigeria.”

The Star Prince and former member of the House of Representatives said compelling the new media platforms to have offices in Nigeria would be of immense benefits to the country, including creation of thousands of job opportunities and contributing to the economic growth of the nation.

He added that there would also be transfer of technology from the media organisations which could be copied for the greater good of the country, while substantial revenue could be generated from the platforms by way of taxation

Senator Nwoko frowned at the payment of expatriate professionals in foreign currencies, while their Nigerian counterparts were paid in naira, describing it as discriminatory and demeaning to the local currency