Minority Caucus berates FG on harassment of Channels TV, move to muzzle the press

The Minority Caucus in the House of Representatives has berated the Federal Government over unwarranted harassment of Channels Television and its staff; a development that smacks of another toxic push against press freedom and the citizens right to know, contrary to the provisions of the 1999 Constitution.

The position of the caucus is predicated on the query issued the Channels Television by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) and the invitation of some presenters of the television outfit to the headquarters of the Commission on Thursday, over some recent interviews conducted on the station’s morning show, Sunrise Daily.

The Minority caucus frowns at the growing clampdown on the media as well as the lack of professionalism and neutrality on the part of the regulatory agency under the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government.

As lawmakers, we hold that rather than try to muffle the media, the broadcast regulator should have directed the television station to avail the Federal Government the opportunity to refute, with facts, the statements of Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State during the Sunrise Daily programme, which it considered critical or misrepresentation of the government.

The commandeering of Channels Television presenters to NBC’s headquarters in Abuja, the query of television outfits, and the unrelenting intimidation of independent broadcast media outfits by NBC are most inauspicious.

Section 14 (2) (b) of the 1999 Constitution is very clear that the security of lives and property is the primary purpose of government. The same Constitution also vests all the security agencies and legitimate instruments of coercion solely in the Federal Government.

Therefore, when criminal cartels freely prowl and plunder the citizens, with the Federal Government showing manifest failure to step up to discharge its constitutional obligations, why should any reasonable government try to muffle the media in their constitutional role in the collective effort to salvage the situation, including the carnage going on in Benue State?

The Minority caucus points the Federal Government to the call by the Governor of Mr President’s home state, Hon. Bello Masari, on people of Katsina State to defend themselves, and wonders how such is different from the attempt by Governor Ortom to hold the Federal Government to account for the failure to check the killings in his state. Both confirm the total breakdown of security in the land.

Our caucus insists that when bloody bandits and terrorists find their way into an elite military training institution like the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), it presupposes nothing else but a brutal violation of our sovereignty and an unedited collapse of government and security.

In that regard, the Federal Government should take steps to reassure the people rather than trying to muffle information.

As the representative of the people, the Minority caucus reminds NBC of the need to stick to professionalism and patriotism in the discharge of duties, urges the Federal Government to desist from engaging in activities that give the citizens the impression that it is always trying to cover up facts.

NBC should not promote the suppression of the truth. It should bear in mind that there cannot be any NBC without a Nigeria. It is also high time the NBC eschews partisanship and also understand that regulation does not presuppose the suppression of truth, but the promotion of it.”