The front page advertorial further read: “This is what the National Assembly wants to achieve with the NPC and NBC (Media) Act amendment Bill.”
“It is not just against the media… it’s about society’s right to know, your right to be heard,” it further posited.
The message was endorsed by the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), the Nigerian Guide of Editors (NGE) and the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN).
The media protest followed the proposed Nigerian Press Council (NPC) and Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) bill before the Federal House of Representatives.
The new bill is tagged: “A Bill for an Act to Amend the Nigerian Press Council Act CAP N128 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1992 to Remove Bottlenecks Affecting Its Performance and Make the Council in Tune with The Current Realities in Regulating Press and For Related Matters.”
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Published 10 June 2021
Until recently, I had believed that the biggest threat to Nigeria’s corporate existence was hunger. Following the shenanigans of the past week when the regime of Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) banned Twitter because he got his feathers ruffled, I concluded that the trouble with Nigeria is that our leaders are a collective of anti-social elites who have zero faith in the country’s prospects. They do not expect that Nigeria can ever thrive, so they do not put effort into building up the nation. Even worse, this unimaginative leadership class frequently and mindlessly pulls down the organic initiatives Nigerians pull together to expand their chances of survival.
SERAP asks Buhari to publicly condemn attacks on journalists
The report showed that 36 journalists were attacked between January 2019 and July 2019, with 30 of the attacks recorded during the 2019 elections.
The
Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to publicly condemn all attacks on journalists and media organizations.
The group said Mr Buhari should “issue a clear public statement to all government and security force officials prohibiting any acts of intimidation, threats, harassment, and arbitrary arrests of journalists and media workers, and state that such incidents will be immediately investigated and appropriately disciplined or prosecuted.”
This was disclosed at the launching of SERAP’s report on Thursday in Lagos titled “Something to Hide? : Media Freedom Under Siege in Nigeria”.