A member of the House of Representatives, Emeka Martins Chinedu (PDP, Imo), has denied sponsoring any Bill to criminalise protests in the country.
Chinedu said his Bill, which was passed for the second reading on Tuesday, aims at protecting lives of accused persons from mob attack.
Rising under matters of personal explanation, the lawmaker said his Bill for An Amendment to the Criminal Code was twisted and misrepresented in the media.
He said: “The caption of the Bill that went viral was never my intent or opinion, neither was it an embodiment of the Bill I sponsored that passed the first reading on the floor of the National Assembly on Tuesday, July 6, 2021, hence, a clear case of misunderstanding, misconception and misrepresentation of the facts.
“As a representative of the people, whose political ideology is rooted in democratic tenets, I can never be a party to a system that seeks to stifle or cripple dissenting voices whose right to freedom of assembly, expression and protest is guaranteed by the combined effort of sections 39 and 40 of 1999 Constitution, as amended, as well as Article 11 of the African Charter on Human and People’s Right to freely assemble.
“While I urge Nigerians to imbibe the culture of reading beyond newspaper headlines in order to comprehend the body of a message, it is imperative to put the record straight in order to douse tension and allay the concerns of my teeming adherents.”
