NASS, you can’t criminalise journalism

ACROSS global history, countless men and women drunk with power have drowned with it. However, history’s lessons are hardly ever learnt, and it can therefore come as no surprise that the current tenants in the corridors of ephemeral power in Abuja, masquerading as the proprietors of today and tomorrow, are treading the same perfidious path that pulverised the dictators of yore and confined them to the dustbin of history. The two bills before the National Assembly meant to amend the Nigerian Press Council (NPC) Act and the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) Act, coupled with the earlier bill to establish a Commission for the Prohibition of Hate Speech, are merely a resurrection of Decree 4 of 1984 enacted under the Muhammadu Buhari/Tunde Idiagbon miltary junta. The verdict is clear: the legislature has become an enabler of dictatorship.

In particular, the Press Council Amendment Bill, the latest in the brazen attempt at turning Nigeria’s hard-won democracy into a dictatorship and reducing Nigerians to serfs on their own land through the substitution of already strict regulations with dangerously draconian and depraved provisions, deserves the strictest censure. The objective is clear: to muzzle the media and rob Nigerians of their voice, the only instrument at their disposal after being thrown into penury and degradation and rendered prostrate through a combination of bad business policies and gross abuse of fundamental human rights.

To say the least, the country has gone to the dogs under President Buhari’s czarist and leprous overlordship. Nigeria is the global capital of poverty, one of the world’s most terrorised enclaves, the world’s least electrified population, among other debilitating signals. A whopping N97 out of every N100 earned by the country under this government is expended on debt servicing, yet the legislature, replaying the drama of the unthinking man in the lore who devotes attention to ringworm while leprosy does maximum damage to his body, prefers to go after his perceived enemies, including the media. According to the garrulously titled bill, “An act to amend the Nigerian Press Council Act Cap  N128, laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1992 to remove bottlenecks Affecting its Performance and Make the Council in Tune with the Current Realities In Regulating Press and for Related Matters,” the Board of the Nigerian Press Council, which includes the representatives of the media associations, shall now serve only in advisory capacity, and on a part-time basis under a chairman appointed by the president on the recommendation of the Minister of Information. In other words, the minister becomes the lord of the manor.

Yet, incredibly, the Council is expected to  (a) regulate the print media and related  media houses, and (b) ensure truthful, genuine and quality services by print media houses and media practitioners! Of course,  “with the approval of the minister in charge of information,” it shall supposedly “establish and disseminate a national Press Code and standards to guide conduct of print media,  related media houses and media practitioners, (d) approve penalties and fines against violations of the Press Code by print media houses and media Practitioners, including revocation of licence and (e) receive, process, and consider applications for the establishment, ownership and operation of print media and other related media houses.”

Section 17 of the Principal Act is amended by substituting new subsections 3 and 4. Thus, where the medium of information or the journalist so sanctioned in accordance with subsection (1)  of this section does not comply with the Council’s prescriptions, the medium or journalist is guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction: (a) in the case of a body corporate to  a fine of N1 million  only, and (b) in case of a journalist to a fine of  N250, 000 only, and the Council  shall order the suspension of the journalist from practice for a period not exceeding six months or more. Make no mistake about it: the government, increasingly frustrated with the media’s exposition of its failed promises and blatant falsehoods, including the oft-repeated lie that it has lifted either 10 or 10.5 million Nigerians out of poverty or intends to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty even while millions and millions of Nigerians, as confirmed by many international organisations, are slipping into extreme poverty, is merely fishing for excuses with which to jail journalists, revoke the licences of media houses, hound vendors, and shut down media houses through military invasion. In this ignoble exercise, it is being aided by an abhorrently irresponsible and duty-abdicating legislature. It is 1984 all over again.

As we noted in previous editorials, the legislators, now effectively an arm of the presidency, tried to railroad the process of passing the bills by employing subterfuge. Stakeholders such as the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) were deliberately prevented from participating in the public hearing held to consider the bills. This was done to avoid the kind of situation that occurred on March 9, 2020 when Nigerians, during a public hearing, massively rejected Senator Mohammed Sani Musa’s Protection From Internet Falsehood And Manipulations and Other Related Matters Bill 2019. Indeed, critical media stakeholders received their invitation letters to this particular public hearing only after the event had already taken place.

Among other blatant attempts to criminalise journalism, the proposed amendments, effectively a recreation of the Official Order, Public Order and Criminal ordinances enacted under colonial rule to prevent Nigerians from complaining, writing or speaking about the brazen theft of their resources, seek to jail journalists for up to three years and fine media houses to the tune of N10m. In the proposed amendment to the NBC Act, the commission is given powers to determine public interest and impose sanctions on television stations, including fines and revocation of licences where it feels broadcasters have acted against its perception of public interest, while the amendment to the NPC Act gives the Minister of Information powers to approve the NPC Code. In short, we are back in George Orwell’s Animal Farm where the rulers are always right, and in his totalitarian world of Nineteen Eighty Four where the state, as Big Brother, eviscerates anyone who deigns to think for himself/herself. These provisions fly in the face of Section 36 of the Constitution which protects the fundamental rights of Nigerians to freedom of expression, and Section 22 of the Constitution which specifically tasks the media with promoting accountability and transparency in government.

As we noted previously, it is apparent that, enabled by the criminal docility of the Ahmad Lawan-led National Assembly despite its serial violations of the country’s constitution, including the invasion of the National Assembly by the Department of State Services on two different occasions, the removal of the Chief Justice of Nigeria without recourse to the laid-down constitutional order, consistent refusal to obey court orders, and the violation of the rights of protesters and naysayers, the Buhari government has assumed a royal,  czarist and pharaonic overlordship over Nigerians. However, instead of seeking to halt this terrible state of affairs, the Lawan-led National Assembly seeks to gag Nigerians. It seeks to use the instrumentality of the law and the repressive powers of the state to put the Fourth Estate of the Realm down and facilitate total totalitarian takeover of the civil space by the Executive. It has abandoned its core duty of making laws for the overall wellbeing of Nigerians, and instead market out the press for censorship. In the name of working in harmony with the Executive, it has become a rubber stamp, validating every whim and caprice of the Presidency.  It stifles debate on core issues of national interest and acts as the voice of dictatorship. This is, we dare say, a crude assault on the laws of the land.

We categorically reject the attempt to gag the media and reduce Nigerians to zombies in their own land. We urge all people of good conscience to keep speaking out against its totalitarian activities and proclivities. In particular, the international community must take stock of its criminal excesses. The right to hold legitimate views is both God and constitutionally given. And it will outlive the current dictatorship.

YOU SHOULD NOT MISS THESE HEADLINES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

We Have Not Had Water Supply In Months ― Abeokuta Residents

In spite of the huge investment in the water sector by the government and international organisations, water scarcity has grown to become a perennial nightmare for residents of Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital. This report x-rays the lives and experiences of residents in getting clean, potable and affordable water amidst the surge of COVID-19 cases in the state…

Selfies, video calls and Chinese documentaries: The things you’ll meet onboard Lagos-Ibadan train

The Lagos-Ibadan railway was inaugurated recently for a full paid operation by the Nigerian Railway Corporation after about a year of free test-run. Our reporter joined the train to and fro Lagos from Ibadan and tells his experience in this report…