Digital
By Constance Imasuen
Abuja, May 15, 2018 (NAN) Ms Nnenna Nwakanma, the Senior Manager, Africa, World Wide Web Foundation has called on the Nigerian government to drive the digital right of Africa.
Nwakanma, an ICT expert made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Tuesday.
She said: “I want to applaud Nigeria whose two houses have passed the Digital Right Bill into law and awaiting assent of President Muhammadu Buhari and am hoping he will do that very soon.’’
“This is very important because Nigeria is the biggest digital country in Africa by reason of its population and by reason of the influence it has in the region, so it is important that Nigeria leads in this.’’
NAN reports that the bill is proposed to provide for the Protection of Human Rights Online and protect Internet users in Nigeria from infringement of their fundamental freedoms
It will also guarantee application of human rights for users of digital platform and/or digital media and for related matters.
She said that adopting the law in Nigeria was just the first step “but implementing it is a different thing’’.
“We had cases of big men oppressing little men, oppressing bloggers because they feel they have been insulted or whatever has been written is against them or their reputation is being damaged.
“There is something called freedom of expression; the right to opinions, and people have the right to say what they think.
“I think Nigerians should be given their rights to opinion; they should be given their right to freedom of access, ‘’ she said.
According to the expert, there is Freedom of Information Bill in Nigeria and if people blow things out of proportion, it is because they are not given the right data to work with.
She said Nigerian government should be accountable to its people and be a leader in digital right so that the rights of Nigerians would be entrenched.
Nwakanma said with the digital rights, people could make money on the internet, adding that Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of Facebook was like any Nigerian youth at the computer village.
“Why don’t we have Nigerians who are going to make money from the internet and influence our economy in the right proportion.
“The digital economy is the economy for tomorrow as oil is running out, we need Nigerians to mine and refine data to be millionaires,’’ the expert said.
The World Wide Web Foundation was established in 2009 by Web inventor, Sir Tim Berners-Lee to advance the public good and basic rights. (NAN)
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Edited by Grace Yussuf