President Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Comrade Chris Isiguzo, has said the proposed death penalty bill by the National Assembly was draconian and anachronistic in a democratic age, “where the right to freedom of expression by the citizens is sacrosanct, as enshrined in the Constitution.”
He stated this Thursday night in Kano at a special reception organised for the Kano state Commissioner for Information, Comrade Muhammad Garba, and four other members of the NUJ appointed by Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje.
According to him, “such a bill is undemocratic under whatever guise.”
He said, “We are not totally opposed to any move aimed at putting a stop to persistent spate of hate speech. What we are saying is that the proposed bill is too punitive and utterly draconian at this material point in time. We are only objecting to the bill for the sanctity of freedom of speech to be maintained.
“Circumventing such a provision as encapsulated in the constitution is not the best. Our lawmakers at the National Assembly were not supposed to be carried away by primordial permutations as to conceive such capital punishment. We are not under a totalitarian regime.”
In his remarks, the Commissioner for Information, Comrade Muhammad Garba, said the reception organised for them by the state chapter of NUJ was “a clear testimony to the spectacular role members of the union played in supporting the administration of Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje to forge ahead in the sphere of good governance and purposeful leadership.”
