This paper examined the phenomenon of hate speech and foul language on social media platforms in Nigeria, and assessed their moral and legal consequences in the society and to journalism practice. It used both quantitative and qualitative methodology to investigate the phenomenon. In the first place, the paper employed the survey research methodology to sample 384 respondents using questionnaire and focus group discussion as instruments for data collection. Findings from the research indicate that promoting hate speech and foul language on social media have moral and legal consequences in the society and to journalism practice. Findings also show that although, the respondents understand that hate speech and foul language attract legal consequences, they do not know what obligations are created by law against perpetrators of hate speech and foul language in Nigeria. The paper therefore, adopted the qualitative, doctrinal and analytical methodology to discuss the legal consequences and obligations created against perpetrators of hate speech and foul language in Nigeria. The paper concluded based on the findings that hate speech and foul language is prevalent on social media platforms in Nigeria and that there are adequate legal provisions to curb the phenomenon in Nigeria. It recommends among others things that the Nigerian government and NGOs should sponsor monitoring projects like the UMATI in Kenya to better understand the use of hate speech and that monitoring agencies set up under the legal regime should adopt mechanisms to identify and remove hate speech content on social media platforms in Nigeria.

This paper is an attempt to draw distinctive lines between the concepts of cybercrime, cyber-attack, and cyber warfare in the current information age, in which it has become difficult to separate the activities of transnational criminals from acts of belligerents using cyberspace. The paper considers the implications of transnational cyber threats in international humanitarian law (IHL) with a particular focus on cyber-attacks by non-state actors, the principles of state responsibility, and the implications of targeting non-state perpetrators under IHL. It concludes that current international law constructs are inadequate to address the implications of transnational cyber threats; the author recommends consequential amendments to the laws of war in order to address the challenges posed by transnational cyber threats.

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It is trite that sovereignty belongs to the people. Thus, the realization that the donors of power: The people or the citizens have some rights against the state, and the need to respond to their desires and demands by satisfying them, ensured the enshrinement of citizens' rights in the constitution as either fundamental rights or fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy. This paper examined the incorporation of the second class of rights in the constitutions of developing democracies such as Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone with a view of searching the rationale and jurisprudence of their incorporation in view of their non-enforceable status. It found that the continuous non-enforceability of fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy in the constitutions of these countries render them more of a democratic demagoguery incapable of furthering the aims of good governance and sustainable development anchored on the social contract between the government and the governed. The paper however recommended that Nigerian court should adopt the posture of judicial activism in interpreting the rights contained in Chapter two of the constitution to bring them in consonance with the civil and political rights, which are enforceable.