The indefinite suspension of the licenses of the African Independent Television (AIT) and Ray Power by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), a first in 20 years, is condemnable.
It is just one of many attempts by the government to muzzle free press and all opposition voices. Nothing justified the decision to shut down media houses for political reasons and as the Nigerian Guild of Editors avers, it is “a case of executive highhandedness and it paints our dear country in the darkest tar of dictatorship.”
Some things just do not change in Nigeria. We recall that in 1984, at the height of the economic malaise, scarcity of essential commodities and hunger pervading the country, the military regime of General Buhari rolled out a series of decrees and laws to curtail the freedom of expression of Nigerians. The infamous decree 4 prohibited journalists from reporting anything that could embarrass the regime, even if it was true. It did not take long before two journalists fell afoul of the law and were consequently locked up.
In 2015, then candidate Buhari promised to operate differently saying he was now a converted democrat. But since coming to power in 2015, his government has become desperate to curtail free speech and trying in various guises to resurrect the infamous decree 4.
It began early in the life of the administration with the anti-social media bill sponsored by Senator Bala Ibn Na’Allah (APC Kebbi South), which seeks to “to criminalise anyone disseminating via text message, Twitter, WhatsApp, or any other form of social media an “abusive statement” intending to “set the public against any person and group of persons, an institution of government or such other bodies established by law”.
When that bid failed, another phony bill seeking to regulate Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) came up. The bill, sponsored by Umar Buba Jibril, (APC Kogi West), sought for the establishment of yet another federal agency to supervise, coordinate and monitor NGOs with sweeping powers to regulate their conduct and grant a license for operation renewable every two years. Without such license, no NGO can operate and the agency could refuse renewal for no reason. What is more, only the license of the agency (not registration with the Corporate Affairs Commission) confers legal personality and perpetual succession on NGOs.
When these efforts failed, the government, in 2017, started railing against what they call ‘hate speech’, with the Vice President, Yemi Osinjabo, likening it to terrorism and vowing the government will no longer tolerate it.
Although Mr Osinbajo never defined what exactly he or the government meant by hate speech, the army provided a precise definition when it announced through its Director of Defence Information, Major General John Enenche, that it was creating “strategic media centres to monitor social media in order to sieve and react to all anti-government, anti-military, and anti-security propaganda”.
With this, the government could conveniently lump any statement or criticism by group or persons which caused it consternation, into its amorphous definition of hate speech and promptly clamp down on such groups or persons.
Nigerians must not allow the government to turn the country into a police state. The last four years have been fraught with many battles against the government to protect citizens’ rights to free speech and association. We also saw how the government and state governors surreptitiously used the police and DSS to clamp down on opposition members and their critics under many pretexts.
If there is one thing history has taught us in Nigeria, it is that we must never allow the government to draw the borders of free speech. Knowing the lessons of history, it will not be long before the government begins to clamp down on free press, legitimate free speech and any iota of criticism.
We strongly condemn the actions of the NBC and its highly politicised leadership. Although the courts have ordered the reopening of the closed stations, we call on Nigerians, civil society and human rights groups to intensify campaigns in opposition to the obnoxious attempt to turn Nigeria into a police state. As the saying goes, vigilance is the price of liberty.
