NIGERIAN FACEBOOK SENATORS



In recent weeks, we all woke up to the news that Nigerian senators who are taking the chunk of the nations resources are planning to make a law prohibiting the use of social media platforms even to the extent of short messaging service, you can imagine that!

The bill in question was sponsored by a senator from one the poorest and most backward part of the country, Kebbi State, simply because somebody is trying to make him to represent the district very well by using the instrument of ‘Recall’ to make him sit tight in the senate.  And in order not to lose the underserved largesse he’s currently enjoying as a senator, the man in question Senator Ibn Na’Allah decided to proposed a bill which will make it difficult for anyone in the country to call them to question even when they are wrong.

In the real sense of it, you wouldn’t think such a bill would enjoy such a speedy passage but to the surprise of many, within two weeks this controversial bill has pass through two readings which is very unusual considering the many issues that are before this same senate which are yet to be attended to.  One wonders why this very senate is occupied itself with such a frivolous bill when some bills which could have had meaningful impact on the people are not even mentioned among them. 

Let me refresh our memory on how this very senate started, this senate started on a very bad note, first, the ruling party anointed candidate was Senator Ahmed Lawan, he enjoyed the support of all the party hierarchy as the favoured candidate for the post of senate president.  The party even organised a straw poll for the two of the contenders in the party so as to guide against commotion but Mr. Bukola Saraki, aligns with the opposition (whom he belongs to before defecting to the ruling party) and sway their votes to his side together with some ruling party senators who are sympathetic to his cause, which made it possible for him to emerge as the Senate President, even to the extent of forging the Senate standing rules and since his emergence, it is one controversy or the other from Code of Conduct Tribunal to High Court, to Appeal Court and even up to Supreme Court in order to stop his corruption trial.  Whereas, somebody was getting death sentence for stealing #14,000.00.
Sincerely speaking, one should not be surprised by the antecedents of these 109 senators of the republic, even their composition is questionable, these are former governors who ran their state aground and now use this red chamber as a retired benefit.  Our senate is full of characters who are not worthy of emulation from the leadership to the followership.  Only few of them are not having one court cases or the other.  Some are former ministers who looted their ministries or who have abuse their office.  Some of them are even drug barons whose presence is being requested for in one country to face his drug related criminal charges.

So, anyone who is expecting any good bill from this current senate of the republic is living in delusion as it will never happen considering the kind of characters that filled up the senate.  How on earth will a distinguished senate occupied itself with such a nonsensical bill like this one, when in actual fact, there are a lot of challenges facing the country which they should have been looking into.  For some weeks now, there have been incessant queues in our filling stations, our roads are bad, our hospital have become a morgue, our institutions of higher learning is in ruins, there is no electricity, the security of our country is zero, our transportation is nothing to write home about, the states can no longer pay salary and the worst of all is alarming rate of unemployment among the youths.  With all these and many more problems at hand, some privileged 109 characters can only think of banning people from exercising their freedom of expression.

Personally, I am not against the regulation of the flowing of information, these 109 can do better by strengthening our existing defamatory law and make it more functional and not lumping things together for us.  And at the end of the day, these are the people who will not make the law to work as they will always find a loophole in it anytime they run afoul of it.

Now we can imagine why we are not moving forward, why we remain stagnant, why there have not been a meaningful development in the country, this is because those who suppose to do the job have left it undone and have now taking their eyes off the trophy.  Shame!!! I wonder how the world will be looking at us right now.

Finally, I want to congratulate the entire Nigerians for this senate because they are exhibiting our behaviour in larger sense to the entire world.  Let us enjoy it, while it lasts.  Peace out!!!!!

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