Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has urged the Nigerian government to introduce age-based restrictions on social media use, warning that unregulated access poses growing risks to children and adolescents.
Falana made the call on Saturday in Lagos while speaking as a special guest at the maiden edition of the Dare2Debate competition, an initiative aimed at sharpening the critical thinking and public speaking skills of secondary school students.
Addressing participants and guests, Falana said the debate over children’s exposure to social media was gaining traction globally, with several countries already taking firm positions to protect minors from potential harm associated with digital platforms.
He noted that some advanced democracies were moving towards stricter controls, arguing that Nigeria would inevitably be influenced by such policy shifts. According to him, regulation, rather than outright freedom, had become necessary to safeguard the wellbeing of young people in an increasingly digital world.
Falana also used the forum to challenge the narrative that Nigerians were naturally inclined towards criminality, insisting that socio-economic conditions were largely responsible for pushing some citizens into crime.
He argued that widespread poverty, unemployment and underemployment had created an environment where desperation thrived, stressing that many Nigerians accepted menial jobs abroad which they would ordinarily reject at home due to societal perceptions.
The senior lawyer further blamed what he described as a distorted education system for the decline in skilled local artisans, lamenting that technical jobs in Nigeria were increasingly being handled by foreign nationals because many young Nigerians lacked adequate training.
He added that effective governance required accurate data on unemployment and a deliberate effort by authorities to create opportunities, recalling that earlier generations benefited from structured employment systems without the hurdles faced by today’s youth.
Earlier, the lead organiser of Dare2Debate, Davies Ikpoyi, said the initiative was conceived to demonstrate the power of dialogue, reasoning and informed argument among young people.
Ikpoyi explained that the programme focused on training students in public speaking, critical thinking and confidence-building, with debate serving as a platform to apply those skills to real-life issues.
Three Lagos-based schools — C.M.S Grammar School, Bishop Howells Memorial Grammar School and Arester Divine School — participated in the competition.
At the end of the contest, C.M.S Grammar School emerged winner with a cash prize of N300,000, while Bishop Howells Memorial Grammar School and Arester Divine School received N200,000 and N100,000 respectively.
