Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, on Sunday, rejected the proposed death penalty clause in the Hate Speech Bill currently before the National Assembly.
Gov. Okowa Okowa, who repudiated the clause during the 2019 General Harvest at the Cathedral Church of the Advent, Anglican Communion, Abuja, stressed that the whole world was moving away from capital punishment for an offence.
He noted that it would not be right for the country to resort to the death penalty at this time and age. The governor said: “I condemn hate speech in totality but we shouldn’t be moving in that direction.
It is not the right path, more so, when people could misjudge the intentions of whosoever is making a speech.
“We may not know who will be the determinant at the end of the day and what will constitute the entirety of the hate speech.
“So, you may just find innocent souls dying for nothing and these are souls created by God and not by man.”
Okowa also pointed out that there was great hope in the future if, only, we could sincerely go back to God as individuals and as a nation.
Preaching, the governor charged Nigerians to trust God completely and rely on his strength. Okowa, who urged Nigerians not to be scared, said that one with God was with the majority.
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“We must take the fear away from our lives, we must also submit totally to God and whatever the situation is, God will resolve it and answer our prayers.
”There are lessons to be learnt for this period that God has taken us through. “If we can recall those lessons and go back to God, God will definitely bless Nigeria again,” he added. (NAN)
