Deputy Senate Leader, Bala Ibn Na’Allah has vowed that no amount of blackmail will stop the senate from passing the anti-social media bill because no one can use social media as a tool to commit crimes and go free.
In an interview with Punch, he said “Our investigation has shown that most of the people who write and publish frivolous petitions are criminals. Go and check what some of them write and publish on either social or traditional media; there is no single suggestion on how the country would be developed.
“Rather, what they have done is to recruit some boys in various places to look for civil servants who are crooks and bring up facts about their wrongdoing and publish it. Those ones would run to them and pay them money.
“You cannot continue to use social media to commit crimes and think that we will just be looking at you. I will not.”
On whether he personally has something to hide, he said “I am Bala Ibn Na’Allah, and have never changed from being who I was. I am challenging Nigerians now that whoever has anything against me should come and say it openly. God will not cover anybody who fails to expose my bad acts if any.”
It was recently reported that President Muhammadu Buhari has announced that he is not in support of the bill.
Na’Allah while explaining the President’s stance said “Don’t misquote Mr. President. He, in a very clear term, said, that he would uphold the freedom of speech as contained in the constitution based on the oath of office he had taken but freedom of speech is not the only freedom that is contained in the constitution.
“The same responsibility he has to uphold the freedom of speech extends to his responsibility to defend the dignity of persons. While should we continue to allow a faceless person to continue to malign and bring repression on the people?
“In any case, Mr. President belongs to the executive arm of government and I have not seen anything wrong with what Mr. President said. In fact, we are on the same page. He even said he was not averse to any regulation that will take care of the matter provided it is done within the constitution.”