A Bill making it an offence to write a petition against a public officer without a sworn affidavit, scaled second reading yesterday in the Senate.
The bill, entitled: “An Act to prohibit frivolous petitions and other matters connected therewith,” is sponsored by Deputy Senate Leader, Senator Bala Ibn Na’Allah (Kebbi South).
Those found guilty will be imprisoned “for a term of two years or a fine of N200,000” on conviction for acting, using or caused to be used any petition or complaint not accompanied by a sworn affidavit.”
It also provides a mandatory six-month jail term without an option of fine for any person that unlawfully uses, publishes or cause to be published any petition, or complaint not supported by a sworn affidavit.
Section 4 of the Bill states: “Where any person through text message, tweets, WhatsApp or through any social media, post any abusive statement knowing same to be false, with intent to set the public against any person and/or group of persons, an institution of government or such other bodies established by law shall be guilty of an offence and upon conviction shall be liable to an imprisonment for two years or a fine of N2 million or both such fine and imprisonment”
Section 3 says: “Where any person in order to circumvent this law makes any allegation and or publish any statement, petition in any paper, radio, or any medium of whatever description, with malicious intent to discredit or set the public against any person or group of persons, institutions of government, he shall be guilty of an offence and upon conviction shall be liable to an imprisonment term of two years or a fine of N4 million.”
The Bill also seeks to make it unlawful to submit any petition, statement intended to report the conduct of any person for the purpose of an investigation, enquiry and or inquest without a sworn affidavit in the High Court of a state or the Federal High Court confirming the content to be true and correct and in accordance with the Oaths Act.
It provides that “any petition or complaint not accompanied by a sworn affidavit shall be incompetent and shall not be used by any government institution, agency or bodies established by any law for the time being enforced in Nigeria.”
Na’Allah, in his lead debate, noted that with the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act in place for unfettered access to public information, it was not right “for this government to continue to waste valuable time and resources in investigating frivolous petitions from the same public”.
He insisted that “the Bill would assist in shaping our negative thinking by elevating hard work over and above sycophancy and indolence.”
The senator added that Nigeria had been drained of well-meaning civil servants, who left the public service on the basis of frivolous petitions, only to be replaced by dishonest ones.
He said: “As a nation with a strong desire to move forward, this negative trend must be reversed, if only the desired objectives of the present government is to be met.”
Na’Allah said the Bill sought to punish people for frivolous petitions by making sure only credible and verifiable petitions were presented for public use.
He noted that the utility of the Bill would save the time and resources going into investigating frivolous petitions.
Senate President Abubakar Bukola Saraki referred the Bill to the Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters.
The committee was mandated to report back to the Senate in plenary in four weeks.
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