Nigeria: Sustaining The Rights Of African Journalists

Struggle for the soul of journalism is taking place in various forms all over Africa. While in many countries, the battle to install transparency, probity and accountability in public service is breaking barriers and boundaries there is the attempt to raise the welfare of practising journalists in others.

 

In Nigeria, however, this struggle is taking place simultaneously. For instance, a committee was raised recently in Abuja, by the Nigerian Union of Journalists to raise modalities for the welfare of its members, even with the backdrop of attempts to have the National Assembly pass the Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill into law.

 

The intention of the journalists’ body, according to its President, Mallam Mohammed Garba, is to have the committee look into ways of addressing the issues of remuneration and insurance cover for men of the pen profession. The issue of insurance particularly became most pertinent in view of the dangers journalists face on the job.

 

Speaking further on the matter, Usman Leman, Secretary of NUJ stated that another business of the committee would be to go round the country and identify media institutions that owe salaries to enable the union swing into action to arrest the situation.

 

Asked if this would not put the body in direct confrontation with media owners, he said he did not foresee such a possibility.

 

“They can definitely not be against the action because we know they are not amused that some of their members owe salaries.”

 

The Nigerian case is somewhat peculiar, as the struggle has pitched the journalists against government on one hand, and against media owners on the other. In case of the media owners, the major thrust of disagreement is not necessary on the passage of the FOI bill, but on the issue of legislation of salaries and conditions of service for journalists.

 

In the case of Ghana, the battle for passage of freedom of information bill appears to be the one generating the most controversy. Scores of journalists and activists in the country had lined the streets in a protest march in the Ghanaian capital in January, as response to the delay in passing their “Right to Information” legislation. Incidentally, the question many ask is if the NUJ leadership would organise such a march in Abuja to show Nigerian legislators that the people are not happy with them on their seeming attempt to kill the bill.

 

Elsewhere, the battle for freedom, or right for information is continuing. In its recent report, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a world body on journalists’ welfare based in USA, indicate that Angelo Izama and Charles Mpagi of Uganda Monitor, the country’s leading independent newspaper, filed a case to appeal the refusal of the Uganda’s attorney general to provide them with certified copies of oil exploitation agreements. Their request was refused as on grounds of confidentiality clauses in the documents.

 

The journalists had argued that the information was of public interest, since Ugandan peoples must be able to hold their government and its partners accountable for the exploitation of their oil.

 

However, Chief Magistrate Deo Ssejjiemba had, in his ruling on the case, said the petitioners had not proved the possible public benefit of disclosing the information to the public. The journalists, along with their partners the Open Society Institute’s East Africa Initiative and Human Rights Network, Uganda (HURINET), gave notice of its intention to appeal the ruling.

 

According to reports, the case was originally filed by lawyer and Member of Parliament, Abdu Katuntu, under Uganda’s Access to Information Act, a legislation he actually introduced into the parliament in 2005. This became necessary as about 50 per cent of Ugandans requesting information on resources allocations, local government affairs, or cases with security agencies get turned down. This revelation was said to have been made available to a coalition of civil society organisations, which has been raising awareness about the law, by one Patrick Tumwine of HURINET.

 

Freedom to information is enshrined as a fundamental human right by the United Nations, and upheld by the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights. Unfortunately African leaders have been paying lip service to the issue of freedom of information.

 

Incidentally, the Declaration of Principles of Freedom of Expression in Africa explicitly states: “Public bodies hold information not for themselves, but as custodians of the public good and everyone has a right to access this information, subject only to clearly defined rules established by law.”

 

Notwithstanding, this has not changed anything in Africa, many years after those words were crafted by African leaders. It is sad to note that only five countries in sub-Saharan Africa (Uganda, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Angola) have passed the freedom of information legislation into law.

 

Mukelani Dimba, the deputy chief executive officer of South Africa-based Open Democracy Advice Centre, an expert in the subject, is one of many Africans dissatisfied with the status quo.

 

Progress in the enactment of such legislation remains sluggish, even stalled for a dozen countries, which have crafted such a bill. In Mozambique for instance, findings indicate that parliament was yet to table a draft bill presented by a platform of civil society organizations since November 2005, Alfredo Libombo, who heads the Mozambican branch of the Media Institute of Southern Africa, made this known recently. The same is said to be true of Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania. According to Dimba, legislative chambers in Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sudan, and Zambia have struggled to push through tabled draft bills.

 

It the case of Nigeria, the bill was passed into law in 2007, but the then President Olusegun Obasanjo vetoed it, just before the legislative year ran out. And the new crop of legislators that took over in the new legislative year had to start afresh, even though it had become apparent to many Nigerians that they were playing pranks with the passage of the bill.

 

Reports indicate that even the handful of countries in which the legislation has been passed, the gains had not really been realised, as there have been little attempt by governments to translate the laws into meaningful reality. For instance, in Zimbabwe, the bill was deceptively named Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, by which it has almost invariably been used to censor the press.

 

Dimba claims to be aware of only two cases in which the law was actually used for freedom of information purposes in the country. In Ethiopia, the legislation was made, within a package of laws, which now effectively works to criminalise independent journalism, but which however has gone a long way in entrenching a culture of transparency and openness. Notwithstanding, an Ethiopian editor Dawit Kebede was reported to have identified improvements, especially with the establishment of Government Communications Offices.

 

However, fear of government reprisals has led many designated communications officers at public agencies to decline to comment without the consent of their superiors, he explained. Even South Africa, recognised as a model of implementation, has struggled to make the progressive ideals of its legislation a reality, according to Dimba. “Only 40 percent of requests for information in South Africa are processed and attended to in terms of the law. The rest are simply ignored,” he said.

 

Latest reports, however, show that after its three-day meeting of February 7, 2009, CPJ arrived at certain decisions, one of which is to intensify a campaign against impunity against journalists. And the issue of campaigns across Africa is what many pundits are now asking for African journalists. Usman promises that they are partnering with such foreign organisations, and would soon unveil a programme.

 

 

- February 15, 2010 by By Emma Maduabuchi

 

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Source: www.independentngonline.com/DailyIndependent/Article.aspx (accessed on 16.02.2010)