Presiding Bishop of the Living Faith Church aka Winners Chapel, David Olaniyi Oyedepo, has said the Hate Speech Bill currently before the Nigerian National Assembly \u201cis already dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oyedepo spoke during the just concluded 2019 edition of Shiloh held between December 3 and 7.<\/p>\n
Shiloh is a yearly programme held by LFC worldwide though broadcast from its headquarters in Canaanland, Ota, Ogun State. It began in 1999.<\/p>\n
The Hate Speech Bill seeks, among other things, death penalty for persons found guilty of spreading a falsehood that leads to the death of another person.<\/p>\n
It also<\/p>\n
The bill, which seeks the creation of National Commission for the Prohibition of Hate Speech, was sponsored by the Senate Deputy Chief Whip, Aliyu Abdullahi (APC Niger).<\/p>\n
Abdullahi had introduced the bill to the senate in 2018 during the 8th<\/sup> Senate, but it did not make it through to third reading.<\/p>\n Describing the bill as \u201ccraziest idea,\u201d Oyedepo wondered why it does not seek for death penalty for killers of innocent people in Nigeria but instead targets critics of the government.<\/p>\n \u201cHate speech is one of the craziest ideas,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou want to hang somebody for telling the truth. The roads are bad and you say that is hate speech.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou can silence everybody but not a prophet. A prophet is answerable only to God. What God tells him to say, he says.\u201d<\/p>\n The clergyman wondered if Nigeria as a nation was making progress.<\/p>\n He said \u201cAre were going forward or backward as a nation? Are the roads better now than before? So, why are you not talking?<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if anybody loves this country more than I do. I love this nation with passion. I called for a prayer and fast for God\u2019s intervention to keep this nation at peace in 1979. That was the first time I did that.\u201d<\/p>\n Oyedepo said killers of innocent Nigerians would not go unpunished by God regardless of the calibre of people backing them.<\/p>\n \u201cLet hands be joined together. The wicked will not go unpunished. They are not hanging killers. They want to hang those talking. Anyway, that (bill) is dead already. If the wicked will not stop his wickedness, God will stop the wickedness of the wicked.\u201d<\/p>\n In another service during the programme, Oyedepo described the Hate Speech Bill as being derived from \u201ca stone-age mentality.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNow they are looking for hate speech; they are not looking for hate acts. Which one is worse, hate speech or hate acts?<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026you will see somebody and cut his head then you are free but you say to somebody \u2018you are stupid\u2019, then you die. Can you imagine that? It is a stone-age mentality,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The clergyman wondered why government would attempt shut the mouths of its critics, saying \u201cYou think we are all dummies? What education do you have? Where did you get it from that you bamboozle everybody?<\/p>\n \u201cYou are not doing well, you are not doing well. They must tell you, you are not doing well. What\u2019s your problem?\u201d<\/p>\n He then asked the congregation, \u201cplease hear me and answer me, is this government doing well?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNoooooo,\u201d they shouted.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Presiding Bishop of the Living Faith Church aka Winners Chapel, David Olaniyi Oyedepo, has said the Hate Speech Bill currently before the Nigerian National Assembly \u201cis already dead.\u201d Oyedepo spoke during the just concluded 2019 edition of Shiloh held between December 3 and 7. Shiloh is a yearly programme held by LFC worldwide though broadcast […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"0","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=438"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":440,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions\/440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}