Osun State Government has expressed worry over what it described as a pervasive fake news operation in the state, saying there was need for all stakeholders to be deliberate in addressing the menace.
Consequently, the state government said it set up a Cyber Crime Action Committee to give effect to relevant provisions of the law with respect to cybercrimes, cyber bullying and deliberate online false news.
The government in a statement signed by the Commissioner for Information, Kolapo Alimi, said that the step became necessary to sanitize the governance space and ensure that politicking and governance take place under an atmosphere of responsibility, decency and honesty.
The statement posited that the increasing wave of fake news negatively affects both the government and the opposition and that it was high time all operators were brought within the compass of the law in the exercise of their rights as guaranteed by the constitution.
Alimi said the committee domiciled at the Ministry of Justice has journalists and legal practitioners as members, informing the public that the mandate is to ensure that fake news is nipped in the bud, no matter who the perpetrators are.
The Commissioner stressed that the Committee is to apply relevant sections of the Cybercrime Act of 2015 as operational clauses to ensure all stakeholders operate within the law in the exercise and enjoyment of their fundamental human rights.
“Section 24 (1) of the Cybercrime Act, 2015 reads, “A person who knowingly or intentionally sends a message or other matter by means of computer systems or network that is grossly offensive, pornographic or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character or causes any such message or matter to be sent, or he knows to be false, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred, ill will or needless anxiety to another or causes such a message to be sent, commits an offence under this Act and is liable on conviction to a fine of not more than N7, 000, 000.00 or imprisonment for a term, not more than three years or both,” Alimi said.
He disclosed that the committee will host its maiden action meeting on Monday even as he affirmed the commitment of Governor Ademola Adeleke to deliver good governance in line with due process, rule of law and fear of God.
Meanwhile, the Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress has said that Governor Adeleke’s setting up of the committee was a ploy to muzzle the voices of the opposition and subsequently turn himself into a dictator in a supposed democratic government.
APC chairman, Tajudeen Lawal, in a statement issued by the party’s Director of Media and Information, Kola Olabisi, described the move as an afterthought aimed at “planting fears in the mind of patriotic citizens who are bent on knowing why Governor Adeleke chose to award over N50bn public road contracts to cyber cafe operators, fertilizer distributors and cronies with no technical and professional competence to execute road projects.”
“It defies logic that a governor who has been shielding from arrest his chief propagandist, who is being wanted by the DSS for allegedly planting fake news about the son of the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Mr Femi Oyetola, is the one touting to curb cyber bullying.
“The issue is that Governor Adeleke is under pressure to defend his corruption-friendly government which has become a butt of jokes among discerning minds in the state.
“If not, why is this repressive move coming up at this time when our party took him headlong on the shady deals that bedevilled the award of his purported multi-billion road/flyover contracts?
“We want to assure Governor Adeleke that no matter his antics, we, as a party, would not surrender our inalienable rights to act to type as a credible opposition to his reactionary, clueless and corrupt government, in the overall interest of the people of the state,” he said.
