Monday Ubani, a legal practitioner and Principal Partner of Ubani & Co., in a chat with Sahara Weekly, sheds light on the provisions of the new Cyber Crime Act, its scope, and why journalists and bloggers need to be more cautious in what they report about others

Q: In recent times there has been an increase in cases of harassment of journalists by government officials and influential individuals over the issues of blogging and cyber crime. What’s your take on this?

Ubani: The position of the law is defamation. You can sue someone who has defamed your character in civil suit and ask for damages to be paid. The law of defamation is about the reputation of an individual. If you succeed and have proven that the person has defamed your character, the person will be made liable to pay damages. You can also make it a criminal offence but many people haven’t been using criminal aspect in addressing defamation, not until recently when the new Cyber Crime Act was passed by the National Assembly and presented to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan. Even before then, libel was still a crime if proved that it tends to lower the character of the person involved. And there are special places where you can be convicted. If they do it ordinarily without making any demand on the victim, you can go in for either six months, or one month when there’s no money involved or the person chooses to do it in a criminal aspect. But if you make a demand, you have the plan of extorting from the person and that comes with a higher penalty under the criminal law. The new Cyber Crime Law has made it easier for any publication of the social media that tends to defame which involves extortion, to be punished under the Cyber Crime Act.

This has opened the eyes of many. It used to be called junk journalism then and most people didn’t seek redress for publications against them but now, the new Act has actually opened their eyes and empowered those offended. So when you write any rubbish and publish or re-publish it, you are going to be held. It is now very easy to hold bloggers who defame the characters of personalities. Instead of them pursuing the civil remedy, they use the criminal aspect. They arrest you, detain you, and punish you even when the matter goes the court. That shows you a lesson and that is why most bloggers are falling into criminal prosecution. People no longer pursue the civil remedy now that the criminal aspect carries more punishment on the offenders.

Can you educate us on what cyber-lock crime means?

There is a lot of crime committed using the internet and you know the social media is a new development. There has been an amendment in the constitution to accommodate this new development in science & technology in order to make sure it’s easier to present such cases in court because if it is not in our law book, no one can be held liable for such offence. So that’s why we have the cyber-lock crime to address crime that comes from the internet and social media. You have so many freedoms – freedom of information, freedom of movement, freedom to be defended, e.t.c. But you also have limitations too, knowing that your own rights stop where others’ begin, you will be careful in your own discharge of responsibility. It’s not victimisation