By Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafsanjani)
The inherent danger in this untimely clampdown is the
potential to escalate reliance on social media and some unscrupulous outlets as
news sources among a great number of citizens. This presents the risk of
increased consumption of fake news towards the 2023 elections and would
furthermore contribute to unnecessarily heating up of the polity against
citizens’ yearning for peaceful elections.
The news media industry serves a critical democratic
function. They do this by informing audiences, facilitating debate and performing
critical oversight. They are mostly privately owned businesses that need to
maintain a certain profit level to continue to be in business. Like every other
business in other sectors, the news media industry is also faced with the
impact of COVID-19 and are currently grappling with issues of dwindling
revenues. One would expect that the NBC would factor some of these economic
realities into its decision making.
While we do not encourage the failure of the affected media
houses to renew their licenses, we strongly recommend for a dialogue with the
NBC towards a review of the costs of license and frequency in Nigeria as it
remains one of the highest in the ECOWAS subregion. Parties should dialogue to
review the rates in line with realities. Shutting down over 50 media houses in
an electioneering period does not only deplete the efficiency of the media to
perform its democratic functions, but is also detrimental to the quality of
news that citizens can consume. In
addition, there will be lost of jobs for thousands of Nigerians which will
further create more social problems in Nigeria 🇳🇬
The overall posture of the government of the day has also not
been encouraging especially towards press freedom. Though the NBC has given
reasons for the revocation on failure of the media houses to renew licenses,
the timing suggests a furtherance of government’s attempts to gag the media and
suppress press freedom in Nigeria. The issuance of threats to sanction media
houses like Trust TV and the BBC in recent times for conducting investigative
journalism and reporting such represents a lack of civility on the part of
political appointees in Nigeria. Civil society will not fold its arm to watch
reckless political appointees ridicule and derail the hard-earned gains of
democracy in Nigeria. It is therefore important that government prioritizes
appointments of technocrats to manage the affairs of critical sectors rather
than appointing political party faithful who only have political allegiance.
While we encourage a dialogue for review of the renewal costs
in Nigeria and encourage the media houses to renew their licenses, we denounce
very strongly, any politically motivated attempt to whittle down the critical
influence of the media in Nigeria. We oppose completely the brazen threat of
sanctions to local and foreign media houses who are carrying out their
legitimate functions. We condemn every action that contradicts freedom of the
press in Nigeria.
We urge the NBC to prioritize citizens need for quality and
concrete news sources towards the 2023 elections as a crucial step to minimize
the spread of fake news which have been seen to be capable of disrupting
peaceful coexistence and peaceful conduct of elections by reviewing its
decision through dialogue with the news media industry.
Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafsanjani)
Executive Director, CISLAC
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