Press freedom and free speech (2) The Sun Nigeria – Daily Sun

In part one publishedlast week, I was very clear that by now our society ought to have gone past making issues of the above freedoms, which have been provided for in our Constitution; we should be rather focused on new matters that are of major national concern. Unfortunately, we have kept at them because of inadequate knowledge among the leadership class about what should be priority matters in country making. The second explanation for this would be self and group interest, followed by absence of a standard vision for pursuing our national development

The crux of democratic order is citizens mass participation in the electoral process, followed by active collaboration in civil governance, and next in importance is their freedom. Sovereignty belongs to the people, and one way of giving expression and vent to it, is citizens rights. When the people give away their sovereignty on short time basis, elections and retention of critical natural rights like the right to free speech and to demand accountability, provide them some measure of safety against very possible tyranny. That is the exact reason those who know give all to protect civil rights.

We ought not to be begging for freedom of expression or freedom of the press. Besides the fact that they belong to the category of natural rights, they are factors without which any society will be something else, and definitely not a setting fit for human habitation. Freedom is right of humans to express themselves without let. When you kill or abridge this right all one has left will be ghosts masquerading as humans. One can guess no one will want this, not even those rural folks we pass for ignorant. Some of us have heard many them challenge us at community meetings by saying, Anyone who will stop me from talking, let him or her not only grow dumb, but give birth to dumb children as well. This is indicative that they know about freedom of expression and the power it has in making the human and then his society. No serious, sane people, and in particular leadership, will fail to take in this and its lessons. This is why many are appalled at recent events surrounding press freedom and freedom of expression in our society.

Many wish our leaders knew and appreciated a few more things about the right to talk. Perhaps if they knew, what they do now would not be, for the simple reason that it is not necessary at all. It is difficult to know what ought to be in a setting where square pegs are forced into round holes. For instance, appointing a lawyer to man information management at the highest level is the apex of aberrations, the situation has not been helped one bit by professional information managers who are lily-livered when they should step out to be counted in moments when the only desire of those who want power by all means is to hurt the people and the society for personal aggrandisement. If professionals in power stood to be counted things would definitely turn out differently and far better. The way things are going they must stand to be counted in the few days ahead and where they fail, their colleagues have a cardinal responsibility to ask to make where they stand public. It is not enough to tell us after office that they gave advice but nobody listened to them. We have seen this pattern long enough, and given where we are this style should be done away with right way if it has not given way long before now.

The freedoms in question are vital to be left to be tampered with by men and women in power, who want to hide under public good to commit blue murder. A leader in America had this to say about these freedoms: They are not just part of democracy, they are democracy themselves. Thomas Jefferson (who told the world that if he had to make a choice between government without newspapers or newspapers without government, he wont hesitate a minute to opt for the latter) let us know that freedom of speech and free press are interwoven with the right to liberty. He made it clear that government cannot abridge any of them without the loss of right to liberty of the citizens. Harold Lasswell could not have put it better when he said: Open interplay of the people and their government is the distinguishing mark of popular rule.

These positions are unassailable; they come into dispute only when farcists are in power and are rearing to circumvent checks against reckless use of state power. Freedom of speech is inherent right, freedom of the press is an outlet and not about profit making. It is an organ that enhances the peoples participation in daily governance routines and empowers them with opportunities to hold those in their service accountable. If truth be told the Core North has dominated power and they have not handled it too well. Poor governance, especially deep abuse of our diversity, is provoking sounds they would like to see buried, and that desire is driving the current efforts to gag the people.

Current heightened efforts to make media laws draconian can be rightly situated within this circle of wish, and exact reason no highly recognized leader from that part of the country has condemned this overreach. The Buhari administration is finding in this regressive desire a source for legitimacy, but this is at the unfortunate expense of building a virile country capable of holding her own in the comity of nations. Other motivations include the urge by leaders to keep their activities secret, forgetting that openness is also a key principle in a democracy. We must not fail to remind the government that the peoples right to know is sacrosanct. The media has a responsibility to report developments to the extent that is limited by social responsibility as professionally dictated, not as prescribed by those in power.

What is more, the Giant of Africa, as we claim, should be a beacon of great examples for others, but we are not. Instead, countries like Ghana, Kenya and others are teaching us things we should teach them. If truly our leaders mean well and are committed to building a great nation where life will be abundant for all, then it should be very clear to them that stifling of voices would always end up provoking a fiasco of unimaginable dimension, and one that would do no one any good. When people ventilate their grievances, the tendency is to relax in the consolation that they have at least voiced out their anger. They hope to have been heard and expect solutions to follow. It is in the solution or lack of it we have peace or conflicts.

We have had conflicts and conflagrations more of the time because those in whose power it is to assuage grievances refuse to ask questions, to listen, take serious the complaints and fail to provide answers or suitable solutions. That is the root cause of tensions and underdevelopment, not what the people say or write. Destruction and killings have always come from raw ambitions of the political class and reckless, blood-filled actions to achieve same, not from what the people say even against each other or as published or aired by the media. Rwanda didnt boil over because of hate speech; it boiled over when someone shot down the plane of the president.

No one is afraid of regulation, what should happen should be the existence of a consensus that no new law from either the parliament or government agencies should seek to take away what the constitution has rightly given. In the event of amendment or new policies, collaboration with stakeholders must precede enactment. When a regulation seeks to suggest what media guest should say or not say, this is not only an attempt to gag, it is a disingenuous undertaking to turn human beings into animals, entities without intelligence. No right thinking guest to media sessions will go right out to inflate passion except he is on a mission. The media should know who they invite but if genuinely along the line slips occur, trained minds who moderate, ought to know what to do to mellow negative eruptions and wipe off any damage done; it is not a task that can be handled mechanically through one for all legislation.

There are concerns about media engaging in activism. There is nothing wrong with that; without media activism our fight for independence would have lasted far longer and at a point turned very bloody. A famous writer, Samuel Gompers, captures what should be when he said: Freedom of speech and and freedom of the press are not granted to the people in order that they may say things which please, and which are based upon accepted thought, but the right to say the things which displease, right to convey the new and yet unexpected thoughts, right to say things even if they amount to wrong.

This is it. Here we say dont discuss security or self determination because it looks strange and harmful, or restructuring because it could lead to dissolution of the country,yet in Britain it is not only discussed, people are encouraged to hold rallies, print banners and other things to express their preferences and heaven wont fall, rather government looks at the issues and tries to find answers which it quickly applies. Here we wont discuss, we rather would wish time and fatigue would wear the people out and wipe the concerns away. Things dont work that way!

Today, absence of sound professional advice has left us with phrases like too much details, glamourising negative news, divisive rhetorics and making something sacred out of security challenges. What amounts to much details in accurately reporting an event ? What is glamourising a bad issue for which state actors seem totally helpness? So citizens should be killed and none should speak or report on matters that ordinarily throw governments out of power elsewhere? On security, which is more harmful: to know the causes and pretend not to know? Could it be the news or security agents announcing intention to storm an area long before they go to do a show of their presence before embarking on actual combating of menace ? Which one?

If we love this country then we owe it responsibility to act in ways that will make it possible for all hands to be on deck for her development. Our objectives must not only be noble our actions must correspond with our heartbeat. We must cease from turning minor issues into major. The judiciary must watch out for those who want to abridge our liberty. Perhaps many dont know it was the judiciary that helped America maintain sense of balance around those issues. Same can be done here. As we conclude we bring forth this immutable remark from Justice Felix Frankfurter taken from one of his adjudications on press freedom: Without a free press there can be no society. That is axiomatic. However, freedom of the press is not an end in itself but a means to the end of a free society. The scope and nature of the constitutional guarantee of freedom of press are to be viewed and applied in that light. One cant add more. This is erudition, the kind that produces modern nations. The people and the press must be left alone. Lets focus on real matters. We know them or dont we?

Concluded.

Originally posted here:
Press freedom and free speech (2) The Sun Nigeria - Daily Sun