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| Atiku Abubakar. |
We are compelled to react to the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission
code concerning infringement on hate speech and the operational style that
media houses should employ to conform with the new regulation.
While there is no disputation over the fact that hate speech
portends an existential threat to the enterprise of journalistic
reporting and, in fact, inhibits the workings for a free society, it is
absolutely repugnant that powers that be would instrumentalize the prevention
of hate speech as a means of constricting free speech.
It is globally acknowledged that one of the core functions of
the mass media is to inform the society on all range of issues, not even to the
exclusion of national security issues. The mass media has a role to play in
ensuring that all possible shades of opinions are given access to the media
platform.
In many advanced democracies the world over, criminals on even
wanted lists of law enforcement agencies have reached out to the media to
express their opinions about the crimes that they had perpetrated and the media
space was not denied to them. As a matter of fact, it seems somewhat
contradictory that a country like ours, which is in the throes of national
security skirmishes, would choose to shrink media access to critical
information . It is not known if any society had won the war against terrorism
by placing a restriction to access to information, in the way the NBC had done.
In a particular reference to the penalty handed down to the
operators of 99.3 FM Nigeria Info, we disagree wholeheartedly with the argument
of the NBC that the interview that the station had with Dr. Obadiah Mailafia
constitutes any infringement or if at all it exposes the station to trading in
hate speech.
Whether or not what Dr. Mailafia said on the radio station was a
false claim, it is outside of the objectives of a responsible regulatory
framework to sanction a radio station for a comment an individual made, more so
that the personality in question, Dr. Obadiah, had been quizzed and released by
law enforcement agents. If for any reason the authorities are not satisfied
with his explanations, they are at liberty to prosecute him in court, but not
to make a scapegoat of the media platform that provides opportunities for
citizens to ventilate their views.
The claim by the management of NBC that "this (the penalty)
is expected to serve as a deterrent to all other broadcast stations in Nigeria
who are quick to provide platform for subversive rhetorics and expositions of
spurious and unverifiable claims, to desist from such", is a naked attempt
to gag the media in Nigeria.
We, therefore, call on the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission (NBC)
to cause a review of the hate speech prohibition code because the very
interpretation of same is offensive to the notion of free speech which is an
essential ingredient of participatory democracy that Nigeria operates.
We also demand of the NBC to drop the penalty against the
operators of 99.3 Nigeria Info FM on account of the fact that the penalty is at
best ill thought out.
Lastly, we want to refresh the memories of generality of
Nigerians that the Nigerian media has been in the frontline of the vanguard in
the fight against military rule and restoration of a democratic order. In other
words, it is very disappointing that under the watch of the All Progressives
Congress (APC) the media is, yet again, being targeted for extermination.
Atiku Media Office
Abuja
13th August 2020
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