5 Years In Jail Or N10m Fine If You Insult Someone On The Internet – New Nigerian Cyber Crime Bill

According to the bill, which was seen yesterday, Nigerians who use profane language on other people or pelting them with insults or abusive words on social networking sites, now risk a jail term that ranges between 12 months and five years. You can also get sentenced to death if you are not careful according to the Cyber-Crime Bill 2013, which is now pending before the House of Representatives.

Here are the listed offenses in the bill with their punishment.

If you as a Nigerian internet user:

• Insults publicly, through a computer system or network, you have committed an offense and will be liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of not less than five years or to a fine of not less than N10m or to both fine and imprisonment.
• If you circulate or make any racist and xenophobic material available online, you get a jail term of five years.
• Cyber-criminals, who hide under the anonymity of the Internet to bully, harass other users of online platforms also risk jail terms when the law comes into full force.
• Anyone found guilty of posting messages deemed “grossly offensive, indecent, obscene” or messages aimed at “causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety” to another online user gets a jail term of 12 months
• If you bully, threaten or harass another person, through “information and communication technologies” or posts messages online that contains “threats to kidnap or injure” another person, you will be jailed five years or pay a fine of N15m or both.
• If you commit an offense against what the bill calls “critical national information infrastructure” which results in death, automatically, a death sentence will be prescribed for you!

According to the bill, Internet service providers will be required to keep all traffic data and subscriber information for the purpose of prosecuting those suspected of committing cyber-crimes. The service providers are expected to provide necessary assistance towards the identification, apprehension and prosecution of offenders, failure of which makes them liable to fines and or jail terms.

Part V, Section four of the bill prescribes the Office of the National Security Adviser as the co-coordinating body for all security and enforcement agencies when the bill becomes law.