FG committed to upholding press freedom, says Lai Mohammed

By Florence Israel (Abuja) and Kemi Kasumu (Lagos)

“Those who concocted a survey to show that press freedom has been on the decline since 2015 should prove why we should not take them to be another set of opposition using the media as tool.  Don’t forget that just few days ago, a report has been circulating where the just released leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Nnamdi Kanu revealed in a way that exposed his pro-Biafra agitation as a department of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP),” the respondent, who spoke under strict condition of anonymity said.

The Minister for Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has said that the Nigeria’s Federal Government, against the recent media survey by Reporters Without Borders, is committed to press freedom.

The Minister said this through a statement signed by his Special Assistant on Media, Mr. Segun Adeyemi, against the allegation by the survey that Nigeria’s press freedom rating had been on the decline since 2015.

The statement which was issued to mark World Press Freedom Day 2017 assured of the commitment of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government to the freedom of the Press in Nigeria.

The Minister pointed out that despite so much inaccurate and poorly investigated news saturating the media space in the country, the administration was yet to put a single journalist behind the bar since it took over power in 2015.

He went further to explain that though some states were reported to have been hard on some journalists and bloggers for some alleged misconduct, “it’s not the policy of this government to join issues with the press because of its commitment to upholding the tenets of democracy which includes Free Press and Freedom of Speech.”

Information and Culture Miniser Lai Mohammed did not fail to recall the issue of the accreditation of the current Chairman of the State House Press Corps, Ubale Musa, which was withdrawn by the previous administration of People’s Democratic Party (PDP)’s Mr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, which the Jonathan’s Federal Government refused to restore restored until the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government came and immediate restore it.

He therefore pledged the readiness of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government to create conducive environment for the Press so as to enable them perform and discharge their media mandate without hindrance.

The Information and Culture Minister spoke just as a respondent of The DEFENDER said although President Buhari should not suppress but educate the overzealous members of the press on why they should dumb sentiment for patriotism and confront them with facts of what the journalism profession they practice actually teaches.

“I want to ask you, why do you journalists always talk about your right to report without telling yourselves the truth of whether what you report is facts-based or falsehood-based?  I mean, and I want you to get me right, you may not interview me after this one but I must tell you the truth that it is sickening that you people shout on top of your voices about how you are being checked over the indecencies that you do without yourselves telling the world what is that thing that you report; truth or falsehood?  Are you not concerned yourselves that much as media are on the increase and have the freedom to report in Nigeria, the country to go down until recently when we have a President that came to say let us move this nation forward?

“In which university or school of journalism were you taught to report falsehood? In which school were you taught that supporting a good government is anti-journalism ethic?  Except you have your own journalism theory that say any journalist must be seen as an opposition.  Are you an opposition in Nigeria?  And if you continue to report falsehood and working based on sentiments at all times, for how long do you hope to remain in media business, even when you are left to doing without being checked?  Why I, like many others who share my concern about the attitude of the press in Nigeria, will continue to hold it against any government, Federal or State or Local Government whether it blocks the press free practice due to the fact that press has a great role to play in exposing problem areas to the government while the government acts on those problem areas, I must confess to you that I will not be good with any press where the journalists allows his personal religious, political, ethnic sentiment to reflect in his or her journalism.

“Those who concocted a survey to show that press freedom has been on the decline since 2015 should prove why we should not take them to be another set of opposition using the media as tool.  Don’t forget that just few days ago, a report has been circulating where the just released leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Nnamdi Kanu revealed in a way that exposed his pro-Biafra agitation as a department of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP),” the respondent, who spoke under strict condition of anonymity said.