The Nigerian Press Organisation, NPO, Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria, BON, and other media stakeholders have condemned The Nigerian Press Council Bill 2018, currently before the National Assembly.
Describing the bill as obnoxious and capable of doing serious harm to journalism profession and free speech, they called on the National Assembly to discard it immediately.
The organisations and stakeholders said in view of the fact that there was a suit filed against the bill at the court, the action of the National Assembly was subjudice.
The decision of the groups and other stakeholders was taken at a meeting of the Nigerian Press Organisation (NPO) comprising the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria (NPAN), the Nigeria Guild of Editors and the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) as well as other media stakeholders held on Thursday over the bill.
Faulting the Nigerian Press Council Bill in different ways, the groups’ demands read:
“That the bill should be dropped forthwith until the determination of a similar case in the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
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“That the Nigerian Senate should borrow from best practices in other jurisdictions that has expressly provided for and guaranteed press freedom without any form of government interference.
“That the Senate and indeed The National Assembly should enable the media in the exercise of its constitutional obligations as spelt out in section 22 by passing laws that will promote transparency, accountability and open government such as mandatory delivery of the State of the Nation address by the President and State of The State Address by Governors on specified days of the year; ensuring by law, Presidential and Governorship Election Debates before elections; complete transparency in election funding including public declaration of sources of election finance by all candidates and political parties and ensuring the integrity of our electoral process, etc, etc.”
The media groups and stakeholders have, meanwhile stated that they would, as responsible members of Nigerian society, continue doing all they could to further promote media ethics, professionalism, transparency, accountability and self-regulation, “to ensure that the public interest is served at all times.”
