By Emmanuel
Onwubiko
The story of the attacks masterminded by the hierarchy of the Nigerian military against the Nigerian media sounds like the parable of the serial rapist who would not let his conscience call him to order unless he is either caught by the long arm of the law or he continues in his acts of treachery and infamy. The Nigerian Military tried as much as they could to explain away the massive undemocratic and unconstitutional attacks against specific media publications such as Leadership, Nation, Punch and later extended to all print national newspapers by saying that it was just doing the routine stop and search for certain materials that would undermine national security. This explanation turns logic on its head because in a democracy, the accuser cannot be the prosecutor and judge in his own case. If that despotic scenario is allowed to be perpetuated then we can as well say good bye to anything we ever know as modern day democracy and civilization. Section 22 of the Nigerian constitution recognizes the media as the conscience of the nation and section 39 guarantees freedom of information to all Nigerians and therefore the Nigerian military under any guise is not permitted legally to stop the circulation of any media print run without a valid and binding order of a court of law in line with section 6 of the constitution.
These criminal acts of media repression, which represent everything that is bad and despicable, were even explained by the Minister of Information Mr. Labaran Maku, a former media practitioner, as if he is not aware of the far-reaching implication of letting the military destroy and ruin the fourth estate of the realm. The extent of rot that would follow the sinister attempts by the military to muzzle the press is that government of the day may have given authorization for theinstitutionalization of impunity, lawlessness and the resort to self-help and this goes a long way to give further weapon to the evil practitioners of jungle justice.
What will the Federal Government tell all those in the riotous crowd of irrational public who take delight in lynching any suspected criminal? At the last count in recent time, over two dozen suspected kidnappers have been lynched to death by riotous mobs without letting the law to take its full course. Now with the rampage of the military against the media, and the lazy justification been bandied about by state officials, it goes without doubt that those who carry out jungle justice also have government backing. The other day the Director General of the National Orientation Agency was quoted in the media as allegedly praising the villagers who reportedly lynched some suspected armed insurgents. Any wonder then that these acts of lawlessness by the military have found willing allies in government? If section 6 so validates the constitutional supremacy of the law court as the only independent arbiter in all disputes, why then will the government stand by and seek to justify these acts of infamy and injustice against the media?
The Nigerian Government must stop justifying acts of irrational attacks against the media by the military because the implication is that if they succeed in muzzling the press which is a strategic tool for sustaining the current democratic experiments then they will go for the jugulars of the civilian administrators of Nigeria who were democratically elected. Section 22 and section 39 of the constitution are very clear on the fundamental freedoms guaranteed to both the media and the citizenry regarding freedom of information. It is to the credit of the current president that the legendary Freedom of Information Act materialized after several attempts failed under previous administrations in the last fifteen years. Why is the current government allowing certain public servants in military uniform to rubbish the much esteemed legacy of this government?
By the way, the Military is also an institution and a creation of the constitution and so I am shocked that in this twenty first century Nigeria, the military seeks to take us back to the medieval period whereby the emperors elevated their selfish interests to the supreme laws of their respective constituencies. The Nigerian Government must caution these military operatives to stop taking the laws into their hands and to seek for legal redress if they perceive that the media has violated any of their legal interest but it is certainly not against national security interest for the media to focus on some acts of suspected corruption that may have happened in the military since no institution in Nigeria is above the law. As my Igbo people use to say please let President Jonathan remove the hands of the monkey from the soup before they change to human hands. The media must be given their fundamental freedoms to carry out their constitutional duty by check mating those who are put in public offices who should discharge their respective duties in line with the tenets and letters of the law and the constitution which is the grundnorm of the land and which must be respected by all and sundry.
Onwubiko wrote from Abuja
