The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed has asked that the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) be given powers to regulate internet broadcasting and all online media. He stated this while speaking at a public hearing hosted by the House of Representatives Committee on Information, National Orientation, Ethics and Values, on a bill seeking to amend the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) Act, on Wednesday, June 16. According to Mohammed, the Federal Government has a responsibility to monitor media content. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stakeholders at the hearing, including the\nInternational Press Centre (IPC) criticised the current situation where the NBC\noperates arbitrarily by deciding what constitutes an offence, decides on the\nsanctions and goes ahead to mete out same to media operators. The IPC described\nthe Commission as the accuser, prosecutor and judge in its own case and\ncanvassed for the provision of a right of appeal to the Commission\u2019s board on\nmajor decisions. The NBC Act was also criticised for not providing for the\nindependence of the body, which has manifested in the Commission\u2019s inability to\nprotect and strengthen the media industry, and to general failure to deliver on\nits mandate. Also, civil society organisations and other stakeholders in the\nmedia industry have opposed a proposed amendment to empower the NBC to regulate\ntariffs for satellite television, as this could lead to excessive pricing. They\nalso rejected the Federal Government\u2019s proposal to regulate all internet broadcast and online media in\nthe country, as this will be detrimental to the freedom of expression and the\npress, as well as civic space. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In another development, Nigeria\u2019s Information Minister\nhas accused Twitter and its founder, Jack Dorsey as being vicariously liable\nfor the losses recorded during the #EndSARS protest. Speaking on a radio\nprogramme, he explained that Dorsey supported the protest through fundraising\nand providing visibility for the campaign on Twitter, and was therefore liable\nfor the ensuing loss of lives and property. The Federal Government had\ninitially refuted claims that lives were lost in the protest. It is unclear if\nthe deaths the Minister referred to are an admission of the citizens\u2019 claims\nthat lives were lost when the military brought the protest to an abrupt end, or\nif his reference is to deaths that occurred as part of the violence perpetrated\nby hoodlums in the aftermath of the protest. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed has asked that the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) be given powers to regulate internet broadcasting and all online media. He stated this while speaking at a public hearing hosted by the House of Representatives Committee on Information, National Orientation, Ethics and Values, on a bill seeking to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[358,359],"class_list":["post-2153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-fg-insists-on-online-media-regulation","tag-international-press-centre-ipc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2158,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2153\/revisions\/2158"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}