Public outcry has greeted the announcement by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed when he recently said the Federal Government had approved recommendations to review the National Broadcasting Code (NBC) and extant broadcasting laws. The minister said the measure was to prevent NBC from undue political interference and exercise its regulatory powers concerning the issuance and withdrawal of broadcasting licence.
From the new directive, the review of the code and extant broadcasting laws would now reflect the consideration of fines to be paid by erring broadcasting stations from N500,000 to N5million for breaches relating to hate speeches, inciting comments and indecency, as the government cautioned that deliberate repetition of infractions thrice, after imposing the fine on a station, would lead to the suspension of licence. In this regard, government has appointed a seven-man reform implementation committee, led by the Director of Monitoring of the NBC, Prof. Armstrong Idachaba, to design the framework for the implementation.
It would be recalled that the plans of the government to strengthen the broadcasting role were submitted in April this year when a five-man committee was inaugurated and given the mandate to make an inquiry into the conduct of some broadcast stations before and during the last general elections in which a total of 26 submitted recommendations were approved. These highlights include the upgrade of breach of political comments relating to hate speeches and divisive comments to ‘Class A’ offence in the code.
NBC is also to license WebTv and radio stations including foreign broadcasters that are beaming signals into Nigeria. The NBC committee is expected to immediately commence work on all statutory, legal and regulatory frameworks for further legislative action on the review of the Act by the National Assembly in a bid to establish and publicise new sanctioning, fines and penalty regime to deter erring practitioners against misconduct in the country.
The review of the NBC code has been greeted with mixed feelings, as some media organisations have been accused of unprofessional practice. However, the freedom of the press should not be allowed in a democracy. The media serves as the mirror of the society by reviewing the activities of government under Section 22 of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended). The state requires its government to render stewardship and accountability. The minister should be seen as assisting the government to realise the objective that makes the media to be the prism of state institutions.
In that way, the media can be seen as performing its important function in a democracy bearing in mind that its excessive control is contrary to what a vibrant democracy requires to blossom. The clampdown on pressmen can be taken as an attempt to stifle the press with the arrest of the publisher of Weekly Source newspaper, Jones Abiri and the detention of Omoyele Sowore, publisher of Sahara Reporters for allegedly calling for revolution against the Muhammadu Buhari administration. It is feared that the amendment of the broadcasting code could truly be a plan to gag the press based on the low tolerance of the Federal Government to the opposition.
Specifically, Abiri was accosted by unidentified armed men reported to be members of the Department of State Services (DSS). He was released in August 2018 after two years in detention following a campaign by local and international rights organisations. In a related case, the Federal Government had charged Sowore, who was the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in the last general elections with treason and money-laundering. It seems our leaders have forgotten history so soon. Nigerians had asserted and exercised the right to protest against successive military dictators, including Buhari in his earlier calling as head of state even though that right does not become dormant under civilian rule.
The government is doing itself a great disservice by infringing this right by way of these ridiculous charges of journalists. Sowore’s arrest and arraignment are seen as the government’s growing intolerance of criticism and violations of citizens’ rights and should not be so. To stop further insinuation that the government is set to inhibit the free flow of information, further deliberation that would lead to the enforcement of the new NBC code should be suspended without further delay. There are many existing legislation that is adequate to curb the excesses of media establishment in the country. Laws on defamation, libel and slander are still relevant.
If there’s anything that the government should channel its energy on, it should be how to make the near moribund Freedom of Information Act, 2011 to be more operational and easy to use. Since the enactment of the law, not much has been achieved when it comes to accessing public information in the country. The essence of having access to government information is to increase accountability in public service, to engender good governance. The nation suffers when good governance does not take root. Therefore, the amendment of the NBC code at this time is unnecessary and certainly the least of our problems.
