A Nigerian non-government organization, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) says that it has filed a lawsuit against President Muhammadu Buhari for imposing fines on media houses for allegedly glorifying terrorism.
SERAP said in a statement released on Sunday in Lagos that the suit, which was co-filed by the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) has the Minister of Information and Culture, Mr. Lai Mohammed, and the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) joined as defendants.
It added that the suit also wants the court to “declare arbitrary and illegal the N5 million imposed on Trust TV, MultiChoice Nigeria Limited, NTA-Startimes Limited and TelcCom Satellite Limited, over their documentaries on terrorism in the country.”
It will be recalled that the NBC imposed the fines on the media house on the grounds that their documentaries glorified the activities of bandits and undermined national security, an act that contravenes the provisions of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code.
But the groups in the suit number FHC/L/CS/1486/2022 filed last Friday at the Federal High Court, Lagos, SERAP and CJID are seeking: “an order setting aside the arbitrary and illegal fines of N5 million and any other penal sanction unilaterally imposed by the NBC on these media houses simply for carrying out their constitutional duties.”
“The NBC and Mr Lai Mohammed have not shown that the documentaries by the media houses would impose a specific risk of harm to a legitimate State interest that outweighs the public interest in the information provided by the documentaries,” local media reports on Monday quoted the statement issued by SERAP Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, as saying.
According to SERAP and CJID, the documentaries by these independent media houses posed no risk to any definite interest in national security or public order.
“It is inconsistent and incompatible with the Nigerian Constitution 1999 [as amended] to invoke the grounds of ‘glorifying terrorism and banditry’ as justifications for suppressing access to information of legitimate public interest that does not harm national security.”
It argued that the documentaries by the independent media houses are in the public interest, and punishing the media houses simply for raising public awareness about these issues would have a disproportionate and chilling effect on their work, and on the work of other journalists and Nigerians.
They described the action by the NBC and Mr Lai Mohammed as arbitrary, illegal, and unconstitutional and contrary to section 39 of the Nigerian Constitution, and international human rights treaties, including the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which Nigeria has ratified.
The suit filed on behalf of the plaintiffs by their lawyers Kolawole Oluwadare and Ms Adelanke Aremo read in part: “A fine is a criminal sanction and only the court is empowered by the Constitution to impose it. Fine imposed by regulatory agencies like the NBC without recourse to the courts is unfair, illegal, and unconstitutional.”
The Plaintiffs are seeking among others, a declaration that the act of the Defendants imposing a fine of Five Million Naira each on the independent media houses is unlawful, inconsistent with, and amounts to a breach of the principles of legality, necessity, proportionality and therefore a violation of the rights to freedom of expression, access to information, and media freedom.
No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.
GIK/APA