Hope Democratic Party has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC and the 45 registered parties to agree to a code of conduct to regulate use of social media during electioneering.
Arguing that he recently concluded Osun West senatorial election was characterized and associated with hate speeches, internet brigandage, social media nuisance and character defamation/assassination majorly on Facebook, Whatssapp and other social media platforms, the party, Mr. Wole Adedoyin, stated that some decorum and decency should be put in place to make campaign issue based rather than mudslinging and hate speeches that heat up the polity and confuse the voters.
He said: “Currently, Nigeria has a population of about 170 million with over 90 million Internet users and 16 million active Facebook users. Over 30 million users are using it for political activism.
“The statistics further revealed that as at the period under review, there were 93,776,771 internet users but current statistics from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) as at November 2016, showed a downward review with the number falling to 92.4 million. It showed that of the 92,446,687 million Internet users in May, 2017 92,416,378 were on GSM networks while 30,309 users were on CDMA networks.
“To us, social media is a very vital vehicle for mobilizing voters and sharing vital news and information not for spreading hate speeches and false information”.
Adedoyin further advised the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Interparty Advisory Council (IPAC) to have basic guideline/rules, which will reduce or put an end to the use of social media tools by politicians and political parties for spreading hate speeches and false information.
