By Chuks Oyema-Aziken
The Federal Government has threatened to punish any civil servant who illegally disseminates sensitive information or raises fake allegations against any government official on the social media.
This comes some weeks after the anti hate speech fine of N5million for all defaulters was approved by the Federal Government.
The new regulations is contained in a ‘Notice’, which was issued by Lawal Ado Dutsin-ma, Permanent Secretary (Administration) for Head of Civil Service.
He said the regulation is to curb civil servants from disclosing sensitive and confidential information on their social media handles.
The Notice read in parts: “Government has noted with concern the improper participation of public Servants in various media platforms, most especially Facebook, Whats app and Twitter applications among others to the extent of disclosing sensitive official government information and correspondences.”
The government notice advised public servants in the country that unauthorized dissemination of sensitive information and fake allegations against any government official is a serious offences in the face of the law and punishable under the Public Service Rules (PSR) No. 030401.
The Notice also warned all civil servants to refrain from questioning their loyalty to the government on their social media handles as this is punishable under the Public Service Rules (PSR) No.030403.
“Thus, the Federal Government has of today, approved the official regulation and monitoring of social media usage by all civil servants in the country and they are all implored to maintain proper conduct on their social media handles.
