Guardian

THE role of the media and the press, the fourth estate of the realm, cannot be gainsaid in a democratic setting, especially in serving as a bridge between the people government in a nation’s development quest. For this to effectively happen, the media should be boldly entrenched in the constitution.

This much President, Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Comrade Mohammed Garba buttressed at the ongoing constitutional review efforts. While applauding the on-going effort to review the constitution, Garba disclosed that the NUJ, in conjunction with other stakeholders, has submitted memorandum to the National Assembly aimed at achieving the desired goal.

According to him: “The review of the constitution is part of the democratic process not only in Nigeria but all over the world because there is no constitution that is perfect. If you listened carefully to the acceptance speech of President Barack Obama, he made mention of the issue of looking inward to see how certain aspects of the American constitution can be reviewed in order to meet the new trend in the American society.

“So I want to believe that it is a very good development as far as I am concerned and this would also afford us the opportunity to really know whether or not as some people are arguing that part of the problem of Nigeria is a constitutional problem. Moreso when people say that the 1999 Constitution was initiated by the President, as most aspects of the constitution do not tally with the tenets of democracy.

“So my expectations this time around are to ensure that we have a constitution that would be able to address some of the challenges we have in Nigeria today so that at the end of the day, we would have a constitution that is acceptable to the majority of our people.

“Regarding the media, there are quite a number of issues that we want reflected in the constitution, especially when we want to further enhance the freedom of expression and freedom of the press which are part of the fundamental freedom in Nigeria and the world in general. I think that there are certain aspects of the issue of freedom, which we feel is very important for the constitution to capture.

“For instance, there is the freedom of the media and the freedom of the press, especially the Freedom of the Information Act. We observed that the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act does not enjoy constitutional recognition. Of course, it is a legal document as far as we are concerned but we feel that there should be recognition for the press and media freedom because the status of this Act now is just a legal law and what we are afraid is that since it is attached only as a legal status the executive or the National Assembly can at any time amend some of the provisions of this Act without necessarily going through the rigours of the endorsement”.