The Nigerian Social Media Falsehoods Law: To Be or Not To Be?

Abstract The far-reaching inimical repercussions of social media falsehoods in Nigeria have triggered efforts at making modern laws to curtail them. The Nigerian Social Media Bill, which was one supposedly would-be modern law modelled after the Singaporean Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act 2019 to contain the monstrous menace, did not see the light of day. Employing the doctrinal research approach and with heavy reliance on decided cases and scholarly claims, this work argues that the antagonism against social media falsehood law is shadowed by a question of legitimacy, which is also the case with every other law hinged on the social media subject matter. It further argues that beyond the ‘legitimacy deficiency’ effect is a silent case for the social media citizens’ (somezens) right to lie and right to tell the truth. As can be distilled from case law reasoning affecting the social media bill, findings indicate that the proposed legal instrument may survive legislative passage if it resurfaces again. However, decriminalization of the sanctioning provision and the removal of otherwise vague terms, may give it a near-perfect legal face, and faintly make a case for its reasonable justifiability.