By Emeka Mamah

Enugu—Stakeholders at a national roundtable on hate speech have said that oral or spoken words alone do not cause divisions or hatred among tribes and communities in the country.

*Left shows the member representing Nsukka/Igboeze South Local Government Areas in the House of Representatives, Dr. Pat Asadu, speaking during the Roundtable on Hate Speech, while Hon. Desmond Elliot (in red attire) and others listen.

They said that gestures, signs, names of people and tattoos also, cause civil strife as they all constitute hate communication and asked the National Assembly to change the proposed Act on hate speech to hate communication.

They also asked policy formulators to be guided by fair play and equity in their actions to reduce acrimony and rancour in the country.

These were the outcomes of the roundtable discussions jointly organised by the Coal City University, CCU, Enugu, and the Africanity  Scholars Network, AfriScoN, on Tuesday. The President of AfriScoN, Prof. Damian Opata, said that the roundtable discussion was conceived by the organisers because hate communication “has suddenly become a catch phrase in Nigeria’s political lexicon, so much so that there are moves to enact legislation(s) on it.”

According to them, “there are high profile and low profile hate communications,” just as “there are very recognisable gender perspectives to hate communication.

The stakeholders stressed that incidents of hate communication should be reduced through education and  conscientisation  of the general public on the dangers it posed.

The discussion, chaired by the Chairman, Lagos State House of Assembly Committee on Tourism and popular actor, Hon. Desmond Olusola Elliot, at Coal City University, was attended by speakers from the National Assembly and universities across the country.

Among those in attendance were the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Ports, Habour and Waterways, Dr. Pat Asadu, Chancellor of CCU, Hon. Chinedu Ani, the Pro-Chancellor of the university and former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, UNN, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, the Vice- Chancellor of CCU, Prof. Malachy Okwueze, Professor of African Literature, UNN, Damian Opata; veteran journalist and Professor of Anthropology, UNN, Peter Eze and Professors Ngozi Chuma-Ude, dean, Faculty of Arts, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University as well as Solomon Ibileye of Federal University, Lokoja.

They also included Dr. Ife Ogbonna of Faculty of Law, ESUT; INEC Commissioner, Prof. Okey Ibeanu and a political scientist, Dr. Christian Ezeibe.

Elliot said in his opening speech that although his father was Yoruba, his mother is Igbo and his wife, Akwa Ibom, he grew up in Jos, in North-Central Nigeria, hence, he understood the need for Nigerians to treat themselves as one family.

Also speaking, Dr. Asadu said that the social media has contributed to the spread of hate speech and writings through the spread of gory pictures of either false or imagined wars.

He further said that hate speeches or “seasonal storms,” which “put the country on the cliff,” increased during election periods like this year.

Also, the President, Pan African Anthropological Association, Prof. Peter Eze, defined hate speeches as unfriendly utterances or texts, designed to promote, incite, express or sustain acrimony or animosity towards another person or group, adding that several African societies had antidotes for such situations.    On his own part, Prof. Ibileye said that tattoos, people’s names or animals as well as signs and gestures could constitute hate communication or lead to violence, depending on the objective of those making such signs or gestures.

According to him, tattoos depicting cult organisations could lead to supremacy wars among cultist groups just as names depicting people or clans as vultures could lead to revulsion or strife in other places.