AN ARTICLE WRITTEN BY ONYIA EMEKA HARFORD TITLED: “CHARACTER DEFAMATION”

Defamation can be defined as an act of damaging someone’s reputation by saying or writing bad or false statement about the person which may lead to suing the persons involving in this act to Court for damages. It is an act of sedition which harms individual or government as to oppose their powers to duty or activities.

We have series of defamation that exist in different sectors of life and economy in Nigeria. And it is a crime to unjustly defame someone’s reputation in the society as this will go a long way to damage his/her career as well as slow down his progress in life. This is a call for serious case because if the victims to this act should stand out for human right abuses; the instigators to the act are liable to punishment of imprisonment according to Nigerian constitution or they pay fine to consolidate the damages they cause the victim.

We have had people published defamatory statements against opponents or political opponents in the past especially in Nigeria, out of ignorant of constitutional law governing this act. And this is where we centre our discussion of Character defamation. Once again, we can say that defamation is any publication of a statement which tends to lower a person in the estimation of right thinking members of the society, generally or which tends to make them shun or avoid that person. It is also any publication that points out and bring down a person’s prestige in the society resulting to that person’s exposure to hatred, contempt, ridicule and as well as make people to avoid and shun the victim or victims. It includes any expression that exposes individual to be shunned or avoided as this will go a long way to cost them, damages to their business or careers in life. Defamation is any statement or publications that make people think worst of you.

Now, People had been defamed in one way or the other without given fairly justice to their plight due to corruption ravaging the nation. Some others are even being defamed with their photographs and video records as these are being displayed before the social medias like Facebook.com, twitter.com and whatsup.com, yet the bodies in charge of these media are doing nothing to stop the molestation and ignorant of these touts that engage in indolent corruption.

Like in Nigeria, it is an offense and equally unsafe to publish the photographs of an accused person or mere suspect who has not yet been charged. But today, teenagers between the ages of 12-18 years use social media to insult dignitaries. There is urgent need for the government officials of nations to look into social media as well as warn the managements of social media to sanction illegal and unsupported pornographic pictures of innocent people being uploaded to the media for mockery and shame. There are series of illegal publications with intention to defame in the facebook.com especially. If proper arrest will begin from Nigeria, People will stop this nonsense because Nigeria remains the backbone to these corrupt practices.

Finally, a lot of people were unable to attain to their future goals due to character defamation. One thing is to destroy someone’s reputation in the society, and another thing is when the law catches up with the suspects and found guilty of the accusation. The punishment to this wickedness is in line with the human right infringement, just like personating   which means using someone’s name or position to receive something without proper consultation of the person for permission from such person is criminality. This act is liable to 14 years imprisonment according to chapter 46 section 484 of Nigerian Constitution which state:

“Any person who, with intent to defraud any person,

falsely represents himself to be some other person,

living or dead, is guilty of a felony, and is liable to

imprisonment for three years. If the representation is

that the offender is a person entitled by will or operation

of law to any specific property and he commits the

offence to obtain such property or possession thereof,

he is liable to imprisonment for fourteen years.”

I am not specifically saying that defamatory statement is 14 years imprisonment as personating but it is treated as infringement on human right which should be reported for high court of law for subsequent arrest of the culprits but as specified in the Nigerian constitution is as follows subject to Chapter 33 section 375-376:

375      “Subject to the provisions of this Chapter, any person

            who of publishes any defamatory matter is guilty of a

            misdemeanour, and is liable to imprisonment for one year;

            and any person who publishes any defamatory matter knowing

             it to be false is liable to imprisonment for two years.

376      Any person who publishes, or threatens to publish,

         or offers to abstain from publishing, or offers to prevent

         the publication of defamatory matter, with intent to extort

         money or other property, or with intent to induce any person

         to give, confer, procure, or attempt to procure, to, upon, or for,

         any person, any property or benefit of any kind. is guilty of a

         felony, and is liable to imprisonment for seven years.”

To this end, I am encouraging the federal government officials to set up anti defamatory strong bodies that will look into Social media publication, News paper Publication, Bloggers, and Broadcasting services etc. to wipe out unsupported publication with intention to defame personalities rather than curbing corruption and encouraging peace and unity in our Nation Nigeria. Long live Federal Republic of Nigeria, Long live nations of the world.

Written by

ONYIA EMEKA HARFORD

AN ARTICLE WRITTEN BY ONYIA EMEKA HARFORD TITLED: “AGENTS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE IN NIGERIA”

Anytime there is a change, you must follow the trend of the change for effective performance of task ahead. Based on this platform, we are to define a social change as transformation of Political, economical and cultural values in society to the benefits of men and women in existence. So, you do not depend on the glory of past efforts to transformation, rather we depend on the future glory that we have invested our efforts to a maximum social change. Social change or reform can also be connected with society and the way it is organized.

In Nigeria economy, we are striving for improvement on our economical, political and cultural background to suit the western culture or ways of doing things or even be better than them. This is why we must welcome change or innovation in Nigeria. And there is no way a change can take effect if Nigeria as a nation did not wake up to fight corruption. This is the centre point that hinders effective social change for better standard of living in Nigeria as a society.

We as a nation are blessed with numerous resources to create a change. But lack of proper management has created a big vacuum that cannot be occupied due to lack of expertise, untrained skills and endemic corruption. Should we wake up from our slumber and make this nation better? Yes, that should be our priority, we can do that but the main fact is that we have what it takes to do that but the managerial skills and efforts are blunt because of corruption, and they need to be sharpened.

Why must we continue to employ the services of western world like importation of foods, drugs, cosmetics, scraps, cars etc? When shall we rise to produce these things by ourselves and export our own products? This is a call to hard work of research to development and advancement.

The western world like Europe and United State does not have two head. But they achieved what they are today because they eradicated corruption in their society. Nigeria is one of the nations that its citizens cease political position for embezzling public and government funds. Most of Quota assigned for federal, State, and Local government during budget of each year are sometimes not properly accounted for at the end of the day; not to mention but few are roads and infrastructural developments are still not organized. Our roads to rural areas are very crude and bad, yet those that are in charge of these developments are sleeping with the money. The federal tenders are now managed by the upper class that will influence the issuing of contracts to suit their whims and caprices to the detriment of the wellbeing and development of the nation.

Think of when unqualified and uneducated sets of people manage the development of the nation? It is a ball game to embezzlement and to enrichment of their pockets. At the end of the day, no work is executed or carried out. This is why our roads are not well tarred, workers salaries are not paid leading to industrialized strike action, lack of medical care facilities in our government hospitals especially for emergency rescue of lives. And as a result, attitudes of staff to duty are not encouraging, as some of them will cease bribery as the main vice to perform their duties.

Now, correcting these errors is simple, if the head of the nation will wake up from slumber. The time of Air Condition executive leadership should be over now. Let us set up panels to monitor the expenditure of every Quota to each year budget starting from the Concurrent to Residual list; irrespective of who is in charge of each Quota. Apart from the states and federal house of Assemblies and Representatives, there should be external bodies monitoring this process for effective performance of duty.

Nigeria today is a bit free from fake drugs because of NAFDAC which was appropriated by former late minister of information and Communication Technology PROF. DORA AKUNYILI; she rendered selfless service to the nation helping to curb corruption in the society. We still encourage strong government bodies like National Agency for Food and Drug Administration Control (NAFDAC) and Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) in other sector of economy to curb corruption and create positive change as well as boost the economy of the nation Nigeria.

To achieve these, we have to call it a tactful task knowing that our loophole to development is endemic corruption. And fighting this from the leaders will help position and restructure the political arena which today serves as the major wing to corrupt society

Finally, for effective social change to take shape, we need the right leaders, because when the leaders are right, the masses can be corrected to follow the trend but when the leaders are corrupt, the corruption will continue to grow like wild fire in the nation. With these points, I think we can make a better change to Nigerian economy. Long live Nigeria Economy, long live Federal Republic of Nigeria, and long live Nations of the World.

Written by

ONYIA EMEKA HARFORD