A radical senator from Kaduna, Senator Shehu Sani, has warned senators of the ninth National Assembly to be conscious of the consequences of making obnoxious laws that would outlive their participation in government. The former Senator challenged senators who are opposed to the Hate Speech bill and the social media bill to speak up during debate on the bills; Sani warned against pretences or sitting on the fence when not in support of any of the bills.
Sani subsequently cautioned that obnoxious laws for self protection while in government can boomerang after the lawmaker had left government, noting that the same law can be used against such lawmaker. He recalled his encounter with the prosecutor over former President Olusegun Obasanjo who was among those detained and prosecuted for treason under the military government led by late General Sani Abacha.
Sani, accordingly, narrated on his twitter handle: “In 1995 when Abacha arrested us and put us on trial for treason before a military tribunal in Lagos, I asked the prosecutor “why are you trying us secretly and why are you hell bent on prosecuting Chief Obasanjo, a former Head of State and a respected elder statesman?,” the military prosecutor said “we are only using the same law Obasanjo made when he was the Head of State to try others for treason in 1976.”
Senator Sani, therefore, declared: “The lesson is that as you make law for others, you are also making it for yourself and your children.”