As Adeleke presents the cybercrime panel, the APC is suspicious

In an effort to stop the dissemination of false information throughout the state, the Osun State Government stated on Sunday that it has decided to form a Cybercrime Action Committee.

The Commissioner for Information and Public Engagement, Kolapo Alimi, in a statement on Sunday, said “The step becomes necessary to sanitise the governance space and ensure that politicking and governance take place under an atmosphere of responsibility, decency and honesty.”

This comes after a social media battle broke out between the followers of the opposing All Progressives Congress and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party over matters of party personality and governance.

The commissioner claimed that the opposition and the administration were both suffering from the state’s growing epidemic of false information.

He explained that “the committee domiciled in the Ministry of Justice has as members journalists and legal practitioners, informing the public that the mandate is to ensure that fake news is nipped in the bid, no matter who the perpetrators are.”

“The committee is to apply relevant sections of the Cybercrime Act of 2015 as operational clauses to ensure all stakeholders operate within the law in the exercise and enjoyment of their fundamental human rights.

“Section 24 (1) of the Cybercrime Act, 2015 reads: ‘A person who knowingly or intentionally sends a message or other matter by means of computer systems or network that is grossly offensive, pornographic or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character or causes any such message or matter to be sent, or he knows to be false, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred, ill will or needless anxiety to another or causes such a message to be sent commits an offence under this Act and is liable on conviction to a fine of not more than N7,000, 000.00 or imprisonment for a term, not more than three years or both.”

Alimi announced that today (Monday) will be the committee’s first action meeting.

However, in response to the news, Tajudeen Lawal, the chairman of the Osun APC, called it a plot to silence the opposition and then elevate the governor to a dictatorship.

Lawal added that the committee was a spur-of-the-moment attempt to incite patriots who were questioning Adeleke’s purported N50 billion public road contract award to underqualified firms.

He said that the Osun APC would be prepared to fight back against any harsh laws designed to silence the opposition in the state and would use all legal means to do so.

He said, “It defies logic that a governor who has been shielding from arrest his chief propagandist, who is being wanted by the DSS for allegedly planting fake news about the son of the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Mr Femi Oyetola, is the one touting to curb cyber bullying.

“The issue is that Governor Adeleke is under pressure to defend his corruption-friendly government, which has become a butt of jokes among discerning minds in the state. If not, why is this repressive move coming up at this time when our party took him headlong on the shady deals that bedevilled the award of his purported multi-billion road/flyover contracts?

“We want to assure Governor Adeleke that no matter his antics, we, as a party, would not surrender our inalienable rights to act to type as a credible opposition to his reactionary, clueless and corrupt government, in the overall interest of the people of the state.”