Africa faces a balancing act on social media regulation
Protests have greeted the Nigerian Senate's introduction of an extensive fake-news bill.
Posted on Friday, 11 October 2019 10:13
This week, the release of the BBC Documentary Sex for Grades has been the talk of the town in West Africa — and for good reason too.
Too often, women in conservative societies like ours are made to feel like second-class citizens, angling for the right to be treated decently and with the respect accorded their male counterparts while also fighting for a seat at the table with respect to economic opportunities.
This brilliant documentary is the work of undercover journalists in both Ghana and Nigeria in detailing the lecherous attempts of university lecturers who use their positions as men of authority to sexually harass and abuse young women under their tutelage.
For Nigeria in particular, it is one more shocker in a yearlong roster full of sex-related scandals.
For a country with pretentiously high moral standards and as deeply puritanical as Nigeria, there are thriving subcultures of rape, sexual abuse, violence and predatory exploitation by those who ought to serve as guardians and custodians of both the legal and moral codes.
The national outrage over these scandals and revelations continues to stir up reactions and have galvanised some level of offline action as well, but that is barely enough.
Though commendable, the incremental but slow impact of community action and street protests will continue to have only a little dent in terms of impact from all of these exposés because of the pervasive societal filth.
So even if protesters lobby for policy change in addition to hitting the streets, what is the guarantee that there will be strict implementation to serve as a deterrent to wannabe predators – or that it will even be passed in the first place?
Back in 2016, the Senate passed the Sexual Harassment in Tertiary Education Institution Prohibition Bill. The intent was to have anyone in a position of authority in any tertiary institution in Nigeria sentenced to a five-year jail term if found guilty of sexual misconduct.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) pushed back against the bill, saying it violated university autonomy.
In the end, the bill was never assented to by the presidency.
The use of power corruptly is such a pervasive problem across different facets of society. Just as importantly, it is pertinent to point out that impunity is a greater problem than anything in West Africa, even corruption.
In Nigeria, only the poor, those from ethnic minorities or powerful folks who have fallen out of favour with the top brass suffer from the consequences of their actions. People act as they will, because they know they have enablers in the upper echelons of the power structure.
This impunity to act knowing there will be no consequences is emboldened at the core by the concentration of too much power at the upper echelons of any leadership structure. In my opinion, a decentralisation of power is needed in order to protect those at lower levels of the pyramid.
If one lecturer is not completely responsible for the grades of a student, the probability of him asking for sexual favours reduces considerably because there is no carrot to dangle in front of his victims. If spiritual leaders answer to a democratically elected or constituted board of their peers, the chances of them being sanctioned after misdemeanours rise.
And if there is too little influence domiciled in the higher levels of the power chain, soon enough patrons will no longer be able to cover up for their friends and loyal subordinates.
Bottom line: Dismantle the uneven power structures and watch people be held accountable. Young women cannot continue to be the avenues for people in authority to practice power trips on.
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