Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has said that the controversial<\/p>\n
Anti-Social Media Bill will no longer see the light of the day at the
\nSenate.<\/p>\n
The “Frivolous Petition Bill” popularly known as the Anti Social Media
\nBill sponsored by Senator Bala Ibn N\u2019Allah representing Kebbi South in the
\nNational Assembly for seeking to gag the social media space.<\/p>\n
The Senate President said he is committed to an inclusive and open
\nNational Assembly where all stakeholders views are respected.
\nSpeaking at the event, Saraki emphasised the growing influence of social
\nmedia users in Nigeria\u2019s political environment, and encouraged the
\naudience to continue contributing to the development of Nigeria through
\ntheir dialogue and debate on social media.
\nThe Senate President stated that:\u201cWithout the involvement of social media,
\nthere is no way that we would have moved from a non-performing government
\n\u2014 because now everything is out in the open unlike years ago.\u201d
\nSaraki went on to commend the online community, calling them the real
\n\u2018Chairmen of INEC,\u2019 citing that their crowdsourced election results from
\npolling stations during the general elections, ensured that the
\nmanipulation of vote counts was kept to the barest minimum.
\n\u201cThough we had the numbers,\u201d Saraki said, \u201cIt is really thanks to social
\nmedia that votes counted because you shared the results as they happened.\u201d
\nThe Senate President also announced that the controversial aspects of the
\n\u2018Frivolous Petition Bill,\u2019 which is the section 4 of the Anti-frivolous
\npetition Bill now popularly known as \u2018Anti-Social Media Bill\u2019 would not
\nsee the light of day at the Senate.
\nSaraki went on to assure the audience at #SMWLagos that in the next few
\nweeks, the calls for an Open National Assembly (#OpenNASS) would be
\nactualised, and Nigerians would get to see the line-item allocations of
\nthe National Assembly.
\nThe Senate President called for continued cooperation and conversation
\nbetween the government and the public via social media, and mentioned that
\nfollowing the recent National Assembly Interactive Session with Civil
\nSociety Organisations (CSOs) called #NASSEngages, starting in 2017, CSOs
\nwould be a part of the budget hearing process.<\/p>\n
The Senate President who is the 1st public official in office to
\npersonally attend social media week which is in its 4th year assured
\nparticipant that his presence at the event shows how serious National
\nAssembly takes social media<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has said that the controversial Anti-Social Media Bill will no longer see the light of the day at the Senate. The “Frivolous Petition Bill” popularly known…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n