The sponsor of the Protection from Internet Falsehoods and Manipulations Bill, also known as anti-social media bill, Senator Sani Musa, on Sunday defended the allegations of plagiarism levelled against him.

Musa, through his twitter handle @Sani313Movement, explained that 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.

Social media commentators alleged that the Senator’s bill was plagiarised from an Act that was recently signed into law by the Government of Singapore.

For instance, 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.

But defending his action, Musa tweeted:

Odorige, however, added, “It is unnecessary to duplicate a law which is already under an existing cyber crime (prohibition, prevention, etc.) law passed during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan in May 2015.”