The Media Rights Agenda (MRA) has called on
the Federal Government to halt its reported efforts to shut down online
newspapers, blogs and websites perceived to constitute a “threat to
national security” reports ITRealms.
Describing the move as a brazen
violation of the Constitution and Nigeria’s international human rights
obligations, MRA threatened to lodge a complaint against Nigeria before
regional and international human rights bodies if the Federal Government
does not put a stop to the plan.
In a statement in Lagos, MRA’s Executive
Director, Mr Edetaen Ojo, said the surreptitious moves to clamp down on
online media, attributed to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), acting on the instructions of the National Security Adviser (NSA)
to the President, constitute an affront to basic human rights norms and
standards which guide the actions of all civilized nations.
Mr. Ojo said: “The Nigerian government,
represented by the NSA and the NCC, cannot constitute itself into an
accuser, judge and executioner in violation of the rights to freedom of
expression and fair hearing, guaranteed by our Constitution as well as
regional and international human rights instruments to which Nigeria is a
party. Their actions constitute a shameless abuse of power by the
Federal Government as evidenced by the underhand methods that they have
adopted in carrying out their nefarious activities.”
MRA said it is inclined to believe that
the plan and its implementation are the handiwork of a few rogue
officials of the Federal Government and that it does not have
government-wide or presidential support, particularly in the light of
the strong denial by the Minister of Communications, Mr. Adebayo Shittu,
of any knowledge of the plan and his disavowal of the move.
It therefore called on President
Muhammadu Buhari, to unequivocally distance his Administration from such
a brazen violation of the rights of Nigerians to freedom of expression,
access to information and fair hearing and immediately put a stop to
the move.
MRA said if the Federal Government
continued with the patently illegal plan, the organization would have no
choice but lodge the appropriate complaints before the relevant
regional and international human rights mechanisms, a course of action
which may prove embarrassing for the government.
The media reported over the weekend that
the Federal Government, acting through the NCC, had engaged the
services of a private company in Lagos to block the domain names of
“several identified websites threatening national security”. The
government directive is reported to have come from the Office of the
National Security Adviser who has compiled a list of at least 21
“offending” websites, blogs and online publications that should be
blocked for alleged threat to national security.
But MRA insisted in its statement that
the National Security Adviser has no authority to make such a
determination as only a properly constituted court can determine whether
any organization or person is in violation of any law for which
punitive action should be taken against them.
The organization also stressed that NCC
acting on the instructions of the National Security Adviser without the
due process of law is violating the constitution and the rights of
Nigerians to freedom of expression including the right to receive
information as stated in Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which guarantees that “Everyone
shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include
freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds,
regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the
form of art, or through any other media of his choice.”
MRA argued that the NSA has no authority
over the NCC which is an agency established by law. It noted that it is
clear from the Nigerian Communications Commission Act of 2003 that the
person duly authorized by law to supervise and instruct the NCC is the
Minister of Communication, who has said that he is not aware that any
memo originated from the NCC instructing any firm to gag the press,
particularly online newspapers, Internet and social media users, or to
shut them down. The Minister also stated that he had given no such
instruction and that no instruction would be given to the NCC without
such passing through him as the Minister supervising the NCC.
MRA therefore contended that any other instruction to the NCC coming from any other source, including the NSA, is illegal.
It called on the Federal Government to
abide by its international commitments as a State Party to the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the ICCPR, and urged it to
commit itself to following the due process of the law.
According to MRA, if the Federal
Government has any reason to believe that any person or institution has
committed an offense or is about to commit an offense under any written
law in operation in Nigeria, its recourse is to bring that person or
institution before a duly constituted court of law and not to resort to
taking the laws into its own hands.
Uboshe Uboshe/GEE
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