NEW SIEGE ON FREE EXPRESSION?
Ayo Olukotun
"We have discovered that some of the amendments being proposed in the two bills are major threats to press freedom should they be passed into law…there is an attempt to criminalize journalism".
Lanre Arogundade, Director, International Press Centre, The Punch, Monday, 21 June, 2021
A good deal of our history as a people has been characterized by a see-saw between tides of repression of civil liberties by government and short-lived liberalizing experiences in which free expression flowered. Needless to say that most of the years featuring the jackboot culture were under military regimes while the more liberal years came under civilian democracies. Let me qualify this by pointing out that not all military regimes were brutally oppressive and not all civilian regimes were as tolerant as the Constitution stipulated.
There is another paradox noted recently at the Second Edition of the Ladi Adebutu Good Governance Symposium held at Abeokuta. Eminent lawyer, Mike Ozekhome, SAN, keynote speaker at the event observed during the question and answer session that many military governments in Nigeria obeyed court orders in contrast to civilian dictatorships many of which routinely flout court orders. That is one way of acknowledging the unlovely fact that the fate of free expression is by no means assured under the kind of shallow and illiberal governments that we call democracies. This is all the more so because former generals have entered the political fray without necessarily going through the famed conversion of Saul to Paul which would have made all the difference.
Even before the current controversy over the introduction in the legislature of two proposed anti-media bills, free expression has had an uphill struggle under the Major General Mohammadu Buhari (retd) regime. As Lanre Arogundade, quoted in the opening paragraph, observed the two proposed bills, namely, 'an amendment of the National Broadcasting Commission Bill' as well as the 'Nigerian Press Council Act Bill' boils down to an attempt to roll back the boundaries of journalism practice and to criminalize the work of the media. As previously mentioned, the Nigerian media space and the scope of civil liberties have been contested in recent years providing a backdrop for the current tussle. Taking an example, from the broadcasting sector, The Economist (London) in an article published shortly after the last election entitled "An Attack on Free Speech in Nigeria" narrated that "stations have been taken off-air and reporters arrested or beaten". In the same month the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission forcibly put off the air waves, the African Independent Television and Ray power radio for what it called 'inciting broadcast and Media Propaganda against the government'. It took a Federal High court Ruling to restore the affected Media to their desks.
A more recent event occurred late last year in the wake of the #EndSARS protest when the NBC imposed 3million naira fine each on Channels Television, Arise Television and the African Independent Television, to serve as a deterrent to others who may wish to 'violate' the broadcasting code. It is obvious that the proposed amendment to the broadcasting code bill is to grant the commission wider powers and greater latitude in reining in broadcast journalists. Even more troubling, is the resurrection of the Nigerian Press Council Act, first introduced in 1992 but withdrawn after a volley of public protest by the media and civil society groups. The proposed amendment seeks to widen the powers of the minister of information and the Nigerian press council to regulate or better still tighten the noose on the media. Under this scheme, if it eventually becomes law, the minister will enjoy sweeping powers to among other things 'ensure truthful, genuine and quality services by print media houses and media 'practitioners', approve penalties and fines against violations of the press code by print media houses and practitioners including revocation of licenses'.
In other words, the minister and the government controlled council will have authority not just to determine what is authentic or fake news, but to sanction media houses and in some cases even withdraw their licenses. If these proposed bills are passed, it may be too late to challenge them except through a lengthy process of judicial contestation. It is better now to so do as associations of journalists such as the Nigerian Guild of Editors and the Nigerian Union of Journalists are doing, so that the proposed bills can be sent to the mortuary for decent burial. It will be recalled that one of the legislative efforts in which the current Senate invested time, is a proposed bill to regulate and possibly suffocate social media. Thanks to public outcry, the efforts were in vain. Of course, that failure did not prevent the government more recently the executive from coming hard on social media as illustrated by the recent subsisting ban of Twitter justifying it by alleged sponsorship of the #EndSARS protest and the removal of a tweet by Buhari which Twitter claimed offended its rules. Taken together, the current attempt to shrink media expression, print and broadcast and the surprising ban on Twitter constitute notable exertion to put free expression under the thumb. It suggests that the administration increasingly views the Nigerian media as its enemy or redoubtable opponent whom it must at all cost bring under its knees.
Side by side with this sad development, is the inability of protesters to employ public venues to express themselves unless they have first been verified to be pro-government. The latest example of this trend is the recent June12 protest which was aborted in some cities by police action, while by contrast those rooting for the government were given leeway and possibly police protection.
Fortunately, Nigerian history taken in a broad sweep does not favor the gagging of free expression. One of my pre-occupations as an academic was a study of the survival of heroic journalism under the military tyrannies of Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Abacha. The invention of a guerrilla media which published and broadcast underground with international resonances is an abiding witness of the ultimate futility of trampling under the rights of Nigerians to articulate their views. Strangely, the recent damaging blows to free expression are coming in the twilight of a two term presidency of Buhari, who came to power flaunting credentials as a "born again democrat".
To take an instance, as a candidate for the nation's presidency Buhari evocatively, remarked that freedom of the press is "a sound democratic ideal". That apart, he held a meeting with media proprietors in which he promised that he would, if elected not only uphold the constitution but he would respect the freedom of speech of Nigerians (see the Economist, 15th June, 2019).
It is difficult for Nigerians, especially those of us who earn a living by what we write either in books or in newspapers, to reconcile the promises and pledges of 2015 and 2019 with what is becoming a snowballing culture of restricting and pushing back the civil space. There are already enough laws in our statute books to sanction erring, abusive, and fake journalism. Piling up further legislation in that direction is not only unjustifiable but an abuse of power. The proposed bills should be allowed to die natural deaths.
Prof. Ayo Olukotun is a Director, at the Oba (Dr.) S.K Adetona Institute of Governance Studies, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye.
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