The National Human Rights Commission, on Monday, said it would set up a national hate speech register to track inciteful and hate speeches in campaigns for the 2023 elections.
The commission said the action followed the rhetoric of hate speech by the various political sides and their supporters, adding that it would encourage the participation of citizens in the electoral process.
The Executive Secretary of NHRC, Tony Ojukwu (SAN), said this at a programme on the launching of ‘Mobilizing Voters for Election,’ which held in Abuja.
He also stated that the commission was partnering with Facebook and Twitter to develop an easy platform for monitoring media outlets for tracking violators.
According to him, the commission would be working with relevant security agencies to ensure citizenship access to the voting process and to protect their rights to vote rather than intimidation.
Ojukwu said the programme was aimed at ensuring the facilitation of citizens’ access to Permanent Voters Card, promoting citizens’ participation in the electoral process through access to PVC and ensuring that law enforcement and security agencies adopt human rights principles in protection of voters access and participation.
Ojukwu said, “The NHRC is establishing a national hate speech register which will monitor and track hate speeches from all platforms across Nigeria and deploy its enforcement mandate on perpetrators.
“The commission will be working with Facebook, Twitter and other platforms to fully establish a monitoring mechanism to achieve this objective.
“The National Human Rights Commission on its part will fully advocate against the use of hate speech. The commission will not act in support of any effort that seeks to place spurious limitations on the right of freedom of expression.
“The onus is on those who seek to police speech, especially on social media to walk this fine line and strike the right balance in order to ensure that human rights are not further violated, whilst fighting hate speech.”
He said, as part of the project, the commission would ensure political parties and politicians integrate human rights commitments and messages in their various campaigns.
The NHRC also hinted that plans were underway to design PVC observatory centres across the country to observe and collect difficulties encountered by citizens during collection of PVC.
The commission recalled that the three elections in 1999, 2003 and 2007 were trailed by complaints of irregularities, ranging from logistical failure, disenfranchisement to electoral fraud of all kinds.
Ojukwu said the trend had negative consequences to the growth and sustenance of Nigeria’s democracy and laid the foundation for a subsequent radical shift in voter behaviour as evidenced in the apathy and regression in electoral participation that would be witnessed in subsequent elections.
He said, “Consequently, in the three subsequent elections in 2011, 2015 and 2019, citizens’ participation in the electoral process and voting plummeted, reaching to a historical low of 35 per cent in the 2019 elections. According to the Independent National Electoral Commission, the percentage of registered voters who voted in the 2011, 2015 and 2019 elections were 53.7, 43.6 per cent and 34.75 per cent respectively.
“Of the 84,004,084 registered voters in 2019, only 28,614,190 voters cast their ballots at the presidential election. In per capita terms, turn out in the 2019 election represents the lowest in the West African sub-region.
“Statistics available to the commission reveal that only around 10 per cent of the voting eligible public participated in the 2021 election in Anambra State. The lack of effective voter participation in elections robs citizens of their fundamental role in a democracy, which is the freedom to choose their representatives.
“We believe that this MOVE project will enable the commission to integrate human rights into democracy and as well ensure citizens’ participation in the upcoming 2023 general elections.”