social media is a problem for Nigeria-President Buhari's spokesperson

President Muhammadu Buhari's Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, has expressed his displeasure with the negative influence that social media has on governance in the country.

While speaking during an interview on Sunday, April 1, 2018, the president's spokesperson lamented that Nigerians fail to give President Buhari enough commendation for his good job because social media tends to view everything negatively.

Shehu further condemned reports that the president is shielding killer herdsmen from the law, arguing that it'll take more than the president to achieve such a feat.

He said, "I hope you also realise that the social media has brought a lot of good things to the world and it has also brought a lot of problems not only in Nigeria but everywhere in the world.

"Nations of the world are talking about regulations and control, this is happening in Germany in the United Kingdom even the United States you see that a lot these technology companies are being fined for infringements that they cause.

"The thing is that there is a tendency to see things from a negative point of view when your point of view is shaped and colored by the social media.

"It's always been heard that the default position of the social media itself is to be negative, so people have turned out to ignore grand reality and project images that are very negative.

"Otherwise I wonder, this is an administration that has done so extremely well and to a president who has sworn to an oath to defend the constitution and protect every life and property, it is very unfair and uncharitable to say that he will shield anybody, and in any case, the president controls only one layer of authority, what are the governors doing, is the social media also saying that the governors are protecting the herdsmen from the law, are they saying the local government are also protecting them?

"You see it has to take everyone at various levels of authority to shield somebody from the law in those circumstances, and the president himself, his passion is for the country, this is a president whose passion is not even for the office, even when everyone is asking him to go for a second term he is keeping quiet because his focus remains the nation and the problem of the country."

Hate speech bill

The federal government has come under heavy criticism several times over the past couple for years for moves that have been perceived to target free speech, especially on social media.

There's currently a bill in the National Assembly which is targeted at mandating death sentences for people who engage in hate speech that leads to the death of another person.

The bill seeks to establish a committee saddled with the responsibility of enforcing hate speech laws across the country, eliminating the menace and advising the federal government.

The bill has been roundly criticised for its vague nature and its supposed aim of suffocating free speech in Nigeria.