President Bola Tinubu’s Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, has come under fire after describing social media as a societal menace and must be regulated.
Gbajabiamila said this while representing Tinubu at the public presentation of a book, “Nigerian Public Discourse: The Interplay of Empirical Evidence and Hyperbole” written by a former Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, in Lagos
“The social media has become a societal menace and must be regulated. As many people do not understand that once the send button is hit, there is a potential to reach millions of people around the world which is capable of causing a great danger not just in the society but even unintended consequences to the individuals that are receiving information which may include security of life,” Gbajabiamila was quoted to have said.
On X, netizens have given Gbajabiamila multiple tackles.
@emmaikumeh said: “Any attempt at social media siege will be FULLY RESISTED. It is quite painful and disturbing that a former Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila will speak in this manner. Nigeria already have adequate laws that deals with issues around personal injury or infractions using social media. Social media is not the problem, poor leadership and bad governance is!”
@novieverest posted a photo of Gbajabiamila in 2014 scaling the fence of the National Assembly to protest against a suspected plan by the presidency to remove the House of Representatives leadership. He accompanied the photo with the post: “This was Femi Gbajabiamila fighting got democracy. Things were not this bad then. Imagine what he would have done today if he was in the opposition.”
AbbaM_Abiyos said: “My message to Femi Gbajabiamila. Before regulating social media in Nigeria, I urged you to use same energy to regulate Poverty, unemployment, inflation, food security and foreign exchange.”
Sports_Doctor2 said: “Every day I say I won’t talk about politics, but every day I wake up to one annoying stunt from the APC. So now Femi wants to regulate the same social media the APC used as a tool to destroy Goodluck Jonathan? And what exactly is the role of Femi Gbajabiamila, is he aware he’s just the “Chief of Staff”, an appointed role, what’s with this “Imposter Syndrome?”
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