Two controversial antimedia bills are in the National Assembly now. One is ‘An Amendment to the National Broadcasting Bill’ and the other is ‘The Nigerian Press Council Bill.’
The two bills, to say the least, are tailor-made to cow and subjugate the press. According to the bills, the National Broadcasting Commission will be empowered to shut down TV and radio stations “in the public interest” and the press code must be approved by the Minister of Information. ” The bills will also allow the government to jail journalists, fine newspapers up to N10m naira ($20,000) or close them for up to a year if they publish “fake” news. The bills will also allow journalists to be held liable for an offence committed by their organisations and they can be made to pay heavy fines.
As the motto of the United States’ Washington Post Newspaper goes, ‘Democracy dies in darkness,’ thus, any attempt to gag the press under any guise is not just antimedia but also anti-democracy. Democracy only thrives when plurality of opinions is allowed and not when a linear line of thinking is promoted. The media is like a mirror through which the government can see its reflection. If the reflection looks ugly, then, the onus is on it to change its ways and make amends instead of vilifying the purveyors of information. The media’s job is not to make the government look squeaky clean, its job is to present the good, the bad and the ugly. The media is never an extension of any government’s PR outfit.
The United States’ democracy was able to withstand the litmus test under the Trump administration because the US media enjoys unfettered freedom which is jealously guarded by the constitution. Any government that hides under any guise to assail press freedom is only suggesting that it has something to hide. No democracy can function effectively anywhere in the world without a free press. In the immortal words of an American Broadcast journalist, Walter Cronkite, “Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy.”
The emergence of the Buhari presidency itself was a product of press freedom that thrived under the Jonathan administration, so it is a big surprise now that this government is attempting to close the democratic space by this attempt to gag the media. A former US President, Thomas Jefferson, said this about press freedom,” I will prefer free press and no government rather than government without free press.” We are therefore calling on the National Assembly to throw out the bills now.