Human rights lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, has challenged the national spokesperson for the Nigeria Police Force, Muyiwa Adejobi, to cite any law that criminalizes insults in the country.
The police spokesperson in a tweet on Friday morning said insulting someone online amounts to cyberbullying crimes, which he described as a punishable criminal offence.
Adejobi wrote: “Raining direct curses on someone online is cyber bullying, not expression of freedom or criticism. Cyberbullying, which is even different from defamation, is a criminal offence and is punishable. Be guided.”
Reacting, Effiong described Adejobi’s statement as ridiculous and without any legal justification.
The lawyer stated that the police’s position is unconstitutional, adding that the offence is an invention of the police that is not supported by any Nigerian law.
His post reads,”This is ignorance of the law raised to power 1000. The fact that this ridiculous opinion is from the spokesperson of the primary law enforcement agency in Nigeria says a lot about the decadence of our institutions.
“To be clear, raining curses on someone is not a criminal offence, and I challenge the Force PRO to cite any law that supports his statement.
“By virtue of Section 36 (12) of the Nigerian Constitution, for an act or omission of be termed a crime, it must be expressly and specifically defined as such under a written law. This Force PRO has a history of inventing imagery offences from his head. Also, curses do not constitute threat to the life of the person that is cursed.
“Curses do not have effect or value in the eyes of the law for the simple reason that they are premised on superstition, or at best the supernatural forces. For example, telling someone “it shall not be well with you” is a prayer; prayer can be positive or negative.
“Wishing someone evil is also not a matter for legal redress. The law does not concern itself with trifling things or spiritual matters.
“What is more appalling is the fact that the supposed image maker of the@PoliceNG does not know that the Cybercrimes Act had since been amended, and that the notorious wordings of the provisions of the old Section 24 which the police has been using to witch-hunt critics has been repealed.
” I urge Nigerians to ignore the misleading statement of@Princemoye1 as same is baseless. What a shame!,” he added.
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