Nigerian Press represented by the Nigerian Press Organisation (NPO), the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) and the Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), have started their campaign in a bid to resist the attempts by President Muhammadu Buhari’s led government to stifle the media’s constitutional freedom of speech in Nigeria, with a front-page protest by publishing a commonly designed artwork in all the Newspapers tagged “Information Blackout”.
The two oppressive media bills which are before the National Assembly, are the Nigerian Press Council (NPC) Act Amendment Bill, and the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) Act Amendment Bill.
The campaign being carried by the Nigerian Press which took off on Monday 12th July 2021, and carried on the front cover of all major newspapers in the country, is sponsored by the Nigerian Press Organisation (NPO) which is the umbrella body of the NUJ, NGE and NPAN.
The protest is expected to continue on July 13, 2021, with all newspapers carrying a front-page editorial “with a central theme – denouncing the government’s attempt to stifle the people’s right to know through its crude attempt to return the country into the draconian era of the military, even as we are in a democracy.”
According to the groups, the Nigerian government and the various lawmakers want to use the bills to cage media practice in the country, and control the access and level of information made available to Nigerians.
The organisation had also objected to the bill during a public hearing on Thursday, July 8, organised by the House Committee on Information, Culture, Ethics and Values, and have now asked the lawmakers to drop the bills because of a pending court case.
It also stated that the bill, though on the surface seems targeted at the media, it is actually aimed at the “society’s right to know and be heard.”
Nigerian Press added that Section 3 of the proposed bill would make the Nigerian media a department of the Federal Ministry of Information.
“A professional code of professional conduct for the media should never be subject of the approval of the ministry or any other political authority,” the group said in a communique.
“The provision of section 3 (d) constitutes a potential threat to press freedom and media survival as it does not provide for judicial intervention before highly punitive measures are handed down by the council and indeed could be used as a political weapon against the media.
“It is a matter that has been pending in court since 1999 but the first decisive ruling in the matter came in 2010 when the high court ruled that 17 out of the 39 clauses in the bill were unconstitutional.
“The federal government appealed and got a ruling in December 2010. That ruling was again appealed by the NPO and it is pending at the Supreme Court.
“Section 33 (3) and (4) does not give room for retraction and apology where a fake news is mistakenly published but recommends a blanket sanction of up to 10 million naira or closure for a period of one year or both,” the communique added.