NUJ denounces jail term for journalists in regulation of online media
President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Christopher Isiguzo has reiterated the position of stakeholders in the media, towards the public hearing of the national assembly to regulate social media.
He said while the issue can be frustrated by the stakeholders if they are not carried along with the processes a stakeholders meeting was important to settle the grey areas.
He argued that any regulation that is tended towards goveernment control of the media would be by the latter except efforts are made to # all stakeholders are on the same page with the people.
He said this on Sunrise, a TV programme monitored by Tribune Online in the company of Sen. Bala Ibn Na’Allah.
He said the manner of invitation was wrong, especially as it came to the Union and all other stakeholders on the eve of the event by WhatsApp message via another source other than the national assembly itself.
“I do not think anybody is allergic here if you look at the issue in Court, we said that government regulate the media, allow the practitioners and stakeholders to regulate themselves, very simple.”
Citing an example, he said in”Ghana, the person heading the press council is a journalist, so we felt that when you allow us to regulate ourselves, it is a lot easier if you look at the proposed amendment bill you see that they want to criminalise a journalist.
“For instance, if a journalist breaches the ethical code, you want him to go to prison, we said no. There are ways that we can sanction the persons as practitioners. We can suspend the person and we can also get the NUJ to strike out the membership of such an individual instead of sending the journalist to jail. These are the grey areas we get should be struck out if the amendment, the President of the Union stated.
Sen. Bala Ibn Na’Allah said the position of the NPO does not dismiss with the procedure of a bill before the national assembly.
He argued that as a senator who will participate in deciding the fate of the bill he is justified especially as a similar bill is being re-introduced six years after he made a similar call.
According to him: “No one who loves the federal republic of Nigeria will sit down and allow a situation where a few elements in the social media will destabilize a country when it has no alternative.
“As a citizen, you have a fundamental human right to like or dislike the President of a country, that is right to line or dislike the government of the day.
“Can you find justification for saying that you do not like your country? I think I will leave this to the public to answer.
“If we have an entire body to regulate the print and electronic media what makes you think it is a misplacement to have some regulation for the social media?
“Of what benefit is it to a country to say it will not regulate the social media that he more access than the traditional media. Na’Allah queried.
Isiguzo said while it remained desirous of the government and the stakeholders to regulate the social media platform, the needed consensus has not been built between all parties involved to engender trust especially on the side of government towards the stakeholders.
He said that beside the poor handling of the mail requesting response and memoranda, he added that the critical areas requiring a journalist to be jailed by the amendment bill for breaching the code were not acceptable.
His words: “From the NUJ perspective, we did not really object to that public hearing but from the Nigeria Press Organisation, (NPO) perspectives, made up the Newspapers Proprietors of Nigeria (NPAN) the Nigeria Guild of Editors, (NGE) and the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) we are opposed to the planned amendment, we asked the national assembly that the matter was of contention in Court and it would be sub-judiced to discuss.
