CONFRONTING SENATOR NA'ALLAH AND THE SOCIAL MEDIA BILL

On the 27^th of January, I was privileged to be invited to meet Deputy Senator Leader Bala Na’Allah to talk/debate the proposed Social Media Bill. It was an interesting forum set up by the Abuja Global Shapers as part of their Abuja Dialogue Series. A couple of things I have to point out here, first I wasn’t at the beginning of the event and had to step out towards the end. The other is that I am not a member of the Abuja Global Shapers nor am I a sympathizer for Senator Na’Allah. Everything you read here henceforth is based off what I was present for.

The Social Media Bill proposed by the senator has caused an uproar, some will say justifiably so, while some will say for the wrong reasons. The first thing you need to know is that the Social Media Bill is not called that, it is actually called the bill to "Prohibit Frivolous Petitions and Other Matters Connected Therewith". It is quite a mouthful, so we will stick to just calling it what it has since been referred to as: the Social Media Bill.

The second and perhaps most important thing to note is that the bill does NOT set out to ban the use of social media or clamp down on people who simply use it. The senator himself is a self-confessed social media user with accounts on all major platforms (Facebook, Twitter & Instagram). He sees social media as something fundamental to our society, so to ban its use is out of the question. What he takes issues with is when it is being used to say things that are untrue or damaging to the character of individuals and while the bill is aimed to cover anyone who has been slandered on social media, it is hard not to see that it is main purpose or rather what inspired the bill is the slandering of public officials. This is something that is hard to overlook. Part of the bill “begins by making it illegal to start any type of petition without swearing an affidavit that the content is true in a court of law”*. It seems like a check and balance type law, but there’s more to it.

I have to take the time out to point out the character of the senator himself before you imagine him as a villain in a Bond movie who wants to control the internet. Senator Na’Allah has a bubbly and charismatic personality as evident to the laughter he caused sharing his story and defending his bill. He comes off as a very peaceful person, whose only seeming flaw is his agitation when confronted by equally agitated people, evident by one participant who was just not too happy about the bill. That aside, the Senator raised some points that thoroughly defended his stance on the bill. One cannot simply accuse another for things he/she hasn’t done and simply think it’s okay to do so. We can all agree with this. The Senator- like any public figure -has been a victim of such to the point where even his family members were called unflattering names. It’s hard not to understand his frustration and see where he’s coming from. What is hard to understand is where this leads us when confronting such attacks.

While I sympathize with the senator on the false accusations made against him and/or his family members, I see it as the tragic trade-off of being a public figure, be you a politician or a celebrity. Once you’re out there in the public, you put yourself up (and unfortunately those close to you) for all sorts of ridicule (I believe one day these lines will be used against me if I ever become a public figure). It doesn’t make what people say about you (or how they say it) right, but you can’t clamp down on everyone’s right to say it.

The bill sets out to punish those who intentionally defame the character of individuals with malicious intent. There is already a problem with this intent and that is the fact that there already is a law in Nigeria that covers slander and libel (I learnt more law that day than four seasons of Suits). So why the Social Media Bill then? The senator himself was a lawyer in his past life, although he admits not a very good one. And here’s where the crux of the bill comes to play: when one decides to fight libel, there’s a process that more than usual takes quite a while, with the social media bill however, let’s just say it’s sped up a bit. A sped up law for a sped up medium, seems almost fitting until you remember this is Nigeria and despite the good intentions of this bill, is still in favour of the few and not the masses, even if it covers the latter as well. The average Nigerian will not go through such trouble to fight the defamation of his character unless he had the means (read: power, money and access) to, but we know who does.

The point that a law to fight libel already exist was repeatedly brought up through the dialogue and so was the constitution which upholds it and the senator is a man who seemingly understands the constitution (he’s not where he is by accident). As he eloquently put it- and I think I’m going to be using this quote for the rest of my life – “The right to swing your arm is stopped by the constitution when you hit someone.” I’m not going to lie, that line hit me with all its glorious awesomeness!

The problem is what to do after you’ve hit someone. The Social Media Bill almost seems to say we can cut off your arm… but just not explicitly. And here’s why: Already there is a problem with how we term “defamation” particularly when it comes to the use of social media. There’s a difference between out rightly telling a lie about someone to make them look bad and telling something that although not necessarily true, is told to point out something else in a larger context, like say satire. Already we know that most Nigerians- politicians and the masses alike -don’t appreciate satire. Either it goes over their heads (am not trying to sound extremely educated or elitist here) or they hate when you call them a fool without spelling it out. And we know that social media has been the home/refuge for those who appreciate and practice satire. What stops people in power or just plain individuals from confusing the two and using the Social Media Bill to prosecute an individual? This worries me… greatly! And this worries a lot of commentators on social media as well, rightfully so. In the hands of the people in power the bill can be used to clamp down on social commentators who use satire to bring out their point, since it at time does involve a bit of fibbing to tell a larger story.

There’s also the punishment to be carried out under the proposed bill that has to be addressed: “two years in prison, or a fine of $10,000, or both, for anyone posting an "abusive statement" via text message, Twitter, WhatsApp, or any other form of social media. It also creates offences with varying penalties for false publications by print, radio and TV outlets.”*

This is where Senator Na’Allah begins to look like that Bond villain (by the way that statement can be seen as a form of satire and can unfortunately be seen by some as defamation of character). For starters, it isn’t that the penalty seems harsh, IT IS. I doubt the majority of Twitter and Whatsapp users are fit to survive two years imprisonment or ready to pay what amounts to N2 million upwards depending on the current state of the market. We don’t all have rich uncles to protect us! Second is how clearly the medium of social media is singled out.

For a populace that has for years before the return of democracy in 1999, fought for an avenue to express themselves with no fear or repercussion whatsoever from the government of the day, this is an attack even with its good intentions. As the bill further makes it clear, people who "intentionally propagate false information that could threaten the security of the country or that is capable of inciting the general public against the government through electronic message" could be jailed for up to seven years and fined up to five million Naira ($25,000; £16,000).* As some have noted, the bill does not define "abusive statement or messages”. And as I hope I have clearly pointed out, some people can’t tell the difference between forms of satire and actual defamation, particularly with the constant use of the former on social media.

The bill is yet to pass as it has been referred to a committee and is expected to have a public hearing sometime in the coming months. I understand the need for the likes of Senator Na’Allah and his ilk to protect themselves as any citizen would want to from untrue and destructive statements made about them, but I personally don’t see this bill coming to pass. Nor do I think plenty of activists who already see it as an attempt to target critics of lawmakers and politicians will stand by it if it does.

Let’s be clear, the internet can and is a harsh place at times. I live there from time to time and I have seen people’s whole generation being slaughtered electronically by words and/or pictures. But it is also because of the same internet that I can post this and express myself (hopefully in a fair manner without defaming others) without having to get a job at a newspaper where my words might be heavily edited so as not to offend anyone and thereby curtailing the message therein.

I have to give thanks to the Abuja Global Shapers for holding such a forum and I encourage more people from our generation to step away from the monitors and screens of their computers and phones momentarily to dialogue in matters concerning their future, rather than wait to criticize whatever outcome is made without them on Twitter.

But perhaps more importantly I think we should all thank the Deputy Senate Leader for taking the time out to explain his stance and defend his proposed bill as he has the right to. Not a lot of our leaders are willing to take the time out to do so, rather expecting us to take whatever law they throw at us. The proposed bill does have some very good points; let’s not doubt that for a second and simply think it is all bad and the senator has shown he is willing to listen and converse… something social media greatly allows us to do, which we hope will continue to happen!

*references from Teo Kermeliotis, Al-Jazeera.

WHY THE NIGERIAN NEWSPAPER HASN’T DIED YET (AND PERHAPS WHY IT SHOULD) PART II

As I mentioned in part one of this post (here), if more people were online in Nigeria, more papers might be in financial troubles. It’s funny that papers- as most of them do –who advocate for a better Nigeria where the average citizen is well educated and perhaps more tech-savvy are perhaps calling for their own decline, because once that happens and the local cabbie, bricklayer, etc realizes he can check the news on his phone (because remember in this scenario everyone has a smart phone of some kind), newspaper sales will decline further.

I’m not saying the newspaper will no longer exist, but it will need to adapt. It survived the coming of radio and TV after all, because not everyone is into those mediums. The same can be said about the “threat” of the cellphone and its connection to the world, not everyone is into it. Matter of fact, I would say it’s better for the lesser known newspapers in the country to not have a larger population online if they still want to thrive. The big newspaper companies in Nigeria today enjoyed the financial gains of the pre-social media age. Any news paper that came after is most likely struggling.

Today’s new newspaper companies are online (Citizens Platform, Naij.com, Premium Times, etc). I was opportune to work at one (where the time wasn’t premium and there was no platform for a citizen like I)… for three weeks. It was here I faced the second obstacle: content and creativity. You can never run out of content, particularly online. You don’t need to wait for the story to come to you, you can search the story and re-write it. This is basically aggregating, something I was primarily hired to do… among other things as I was to find out every single day, because someone couldn’t lay out the rules from day one.

The problem with aggregating is you’re likely rewriting something that is already out there, but for your own paper. You’re also likely going to be writing up stuff sent to you from your co-workers. There’s really nothing wrong with aggregating, as long as your website has original content no one will be worried about seeing a story on your site that was previously elsewhere unless you do like the stereotypical Nigerian blogger and copy and paste.

When it came to original content however, I found very little room for it, where I had to fight for stories that I thought were relevant and that other Nigerian websites were not carrying (again, certain rules were not made clear to me from the beginning). This was the creativity problem. It seemed it was being killed in this company for the more traditional stories (politics and sports: their bread and butter). Never mind the encouraged tabloid-ish headlines (See What This Guy Was Caught Doing) they liked to parade to the fact that one of my articles got edited by three or four people, by the end of which looked like it was written by a hack who stole my name (no disrespect to my editors, but too many cooks…).

I understand the need for editors and I understand the need for rules (especially when they choose your headlines for you as you silently cringe and die inside), but if we’re not growing what’s the point?! The title of this post is in no way a riff of those catchy headlines, though I admit it is me being a tad dramatic, but I find it better than: See What This Bitter Ex-Writer Has To Say About Nigerian Newspapers, which might make you click on the link to see if I hurled insults on the newspaper business only to find out I was being quite objective (I think I’ve been objective thus far). But why be so over-dramatic with the headlines? Good writing should sell itself… okay, maybe with a good headline too, but not one that looks like we’re writing for Hello! magazine!

Still on physical newspapers, there are ways for them to still prosper. They need to think outside the box, move online and perhaps do features on the idiot box (a.k.a television), that great invention that occupies so many people’s time. I’d give more ideas here, but bruh someone needs to pay me. At this point I’ve failed to mention one crucial thing, before working in both these media houses, I worked and by default still work at a printing press that specifically prints newspapers. So I know what the volume of print is… it’s low. I’ve seen it gone from a constant daily output of big newspapers to days where it seemed nothing was happening. The big newspaper companies (the ones that thrived off advertising pre-social media) all own their printing press these days and don’t need us. The new ones (caught by the changing tide of technology) collectively don’t print enough to cover the cost one big newspaper company use to make for us back in the day, remember a lot of these new papers rely on advertising for financial sustenance.

If physical papers still want to exist, they need to think beyond the old form of advertising and if online papers want to survive an arena where everyone is posting the same news, they need to try some creativity! ‘Nuff said!

WHY THE NIGERIAN NEWSPAPER HASN’T DIED YET (AND PERHAPS WHY IT SHOULD) PART I

This is a two-part post due to length, so forgive me!

Honestly, I could’ve come up with a better title, but let’s just go with this, it’s all part of the article as you will see. I’ve worked for two newspaper companies, one in their advert department; the other as an aggregator. I am not and have never been a journalist or considered myself one, EVER! I am just a guy who loves to write. The first company I worked for was and still is a physical newspaper business, which means tons of paper is being wasted to give us information we don’t need, though you can argue there’s no such thing as wasted knowledge. The second company was an online publication, which means tons of data may have been wasted reading information we don’t need, though again you can argue there’s no such thing as wasted knowledge.

This article will look into the two different obstacles I faced working in each, one dealing with finances and reasoning, the other dealing with content and creativity. Just so you know this isn’t necessarily a fair and balanced portrayal of the decline of newspapers in Nigeria and why they’re still alive. For every argument I make here, I’m sure there’s someone at a desk in some newspaper company that will counter with, “but this is how it works… just do it!” God knows I heard that a lot as an aggregator. Do I have bitter experiences working in these companies? Yes, one more so than the other. This is going to be a very cynical post. So let’s get to it.

Newspapers all over the world have generally been on the decline, at least physically. This doesn’t mean newspapers don’t get printed, it just means if I can check the news on my phone, particularly just the bits that I like, why pay for an actual newspaper. As someone once said, “They’re always be the news, but it doesn’t mean they’re always be paper.”

The newspaper in Nigeria has survived for two reasons in my opinion, possibly three. One; like most newspapers around the world, those in Nigeria have survived mainly on readership and advertising, largely the latter when you consider how much of the same news is in every paper. Two; many a Nigerian newspapers still exist due to the fact that despite all the noise Nigerians make on social media and by and large the web, the truth is only about 15% of us are online or can afford to be at any given time of the day (though the number is rising).

When the newspaper decline hit most first world countries, part of it was because of the number of people online; the same can’t be said for Nigeria. If more than half of Nigeria was online, some companies would have folded by now. At the fear of sounding elitist, there’s all the fact that the population offline may not know any better and that’s even if you assume they buy the papers to begin with. And then there’s the third possible reason why the Nigerian newspaper is still alive: actual unique content. Considering the Nigerian culture of copy and paste (hello Naija bloggers) or read-and-aggregate (which is also common around the world), this is a big reason why certain papers are still in print. Certain newspaper companies have distinguished themselves like Media Trust and its various franchise papers.

But let’s get down to the nitty gritty; the obstacle at my first company: finances and reasoning. In my first company, I worked as a freelance advert executive. I imagined the job (perhaps naively) was on some Don Draper type tip and we were to come up with ways to get people to advertise in our newspaper(s). Turns out it was just a marketing job and if need be a door-to-door salesman exercise (Wait, WHAT?!). This was 2012-2013. If you open a random Nigerian newspaper on any given day, really just pick any freaking day, you might see pages upon pages of messages to Governor What’s-His-Face from his cronies. At some point this can turn out to be half the paper, especially if it’s ex-president Uphill’s birthday or someone of that caliber. The newspapers would’ve made a killing in that week.

Having been in the boardroom of many a long (and I mean LONG) Monday meetings (with opening and closing prayers) about finding clients, I can give you a rundown of who basically advertises in your local newspaper. The big guns are usually the telecommunication companies (the MTNs, the Glos, etc) and brand names like Guinness, Dangote and so forth. Companies who can afford to place an ad every day of the year in every newspaper in the country without breaking a sweat (money good o). Then you have your state and/or national level cronies who send felicitations to their ogas (Happy birthday Governor/Senator/President I-Bow-To-You) or mention the “great” things they have done for their local govts/states/country.

You also have governors or presidential aides who take journalist on media campaign tours and pay to have a feature of their “good” works on display for all Nigerians to see. You have your foreign companies trying to break in, road construction companies, expats and embassies and these are all the people with the money. And once in a while, there’s those group of people that substitute for what is Nigeria’s middle class.

What you don’t have are the everyday people, what the elite Hausa man might call Yakubawa, except when you flip over to the pages of classifieds ads and loss-of-documents and change-of-name pages, which is usually just all one page. All these usually don’t cost more than N10, 000. The classifieds are pretty much non-existent today if you consider how much easier it is to send a tweet requesting for such and such services and having it retweeted.

Now mind you when you work in an ad department like this, all the big name clients have people that they already talk to to place their ads. These are your co-workers and by default your competitors. Aside your regular salary, your other source of income is the commission you get for every client. Your job now is to either find more big name clients (‘cause God forbid you steal somebody else’s) or regular old people to fill up the cheaper boxes. Now if you’re like me, you look at the “cheaper” boxers and say to yourself, “Would I actually spend that much money for that little a box… in the age of social media?!”

And hence began my argument with the board of executives or rather their representative, the advert boss (really nice man, who turned down my resignation three months in and kept me for five more months… where we argued more about those so called cheap boxes). I was hired to get “small to medium” Abuja businesses to advertise in their papers at an offered cheap rate. My argument went thus: the prices aren’t cheap (no matter how you see it)! Social media is cheaper. If you want Abuja businesses to advertise in your papers, do a profile on them. Entice them. Give them more for less and not just a box in a paper.

But they weren’t listening. They argument went: we can’t do a profile on them, unless they pay for it. We can’t offer more than an ad for a day. Giving them a week’s ad for the price of a day goes against our principle. We are here to make money.

Our countered: I get your point, but these small to medium-size businesses DON’T need you, but you apparently seem to want their money, so listen up! They have all their clients on BBM, twitter and facebook. When opening their new businesses, all they need to do is send broadcasts and tweets and post fancy pictures on Instagram. Never mind that these so-called small to medium-scale businesses are mostly owned by people from wealthy backgrounds (some IJGBs) we went to schools and come from families where they were most likely taught to spend less for more. They don’t need us! And speaking of even smaller-scale businesses, the maishayi and indomie maker don’t need to advertise in your papers. People eat everyday; they know where their stands are. Are you going to convince a maishayi to part with what he makes in a week to place an ad in your paper?! Even Yahuza doesn’t advertise for God’s sakes!

Their counter-argument: We don’t care!!!

Me: Well, I tried… you go shay continue to pay me ba?!

So take away the big brand spenders and physical newspapers in Nigeria might only survive on readership, however long that may last, which leads us to the question why do they still have any patronage.  We’ll discuss that in part two.

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