The sponsor of the Protection from Internet Falsehoods and Manipulations Bill, also known as anti-social media bill, Senator Sani Musa, has refuted allegations of plagiarism levelled against him.
on Sunday defended the allegations of plagiarism levelled against him.
Musa, took to his twitter handle @Sani313Movement, to defend the bill, and he pointed out the similarity between his draft bill and the Singaporean Statute on the same subject was in order.
A copy of the Singaporean legislation on the same subject matter, which surfaced on social media on Saturday, revealed that the title and most of the contents of Musa’s bill currently undergoing debate at the National Assembly were the same.
Reacting to the development, commentators on various Social media platforms alleged that the Senator’s bill was plagiarised from an Act that was recently signed into law by the Government of Singapore.
A video broadcast, released by Frederick Odorige of the Global Coalition for Security Democracy, stated that the title of the bill was copied from the ‘Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act 2019’ of the Republic of Singapore.
He said the Act was passed by the Singaporean Parliament on May 8, 2019 and assented to by President Halimah Yacob on June 3, 2019.
Concerning the title of the bill, Odorige alleged that Musa “ingeniously substituted the word ‘online’ as used by the Parliament of Singapore for ‘Internet.’”
The other parts of the title and most of the other contents of the bill, according to him, were exactly the same as that of the Singaporeans.
