Press Statement
Lagos, Monday, November 6, 2017: 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”.
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.
For further information, please contact:
Ridwan Sulaimon
Programme Manager, Freedom of Information
Media Rights Agenda, Lagos
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