Anti-media policies: HURIDE calls Information Minister, Lai Muhammed to resign

 

A  human rights and pro-democracy group, has called  for the immediate resignation of the Minister of  Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Lai Muhammed for his consistent and undignified attempt to muscle the media in the country.

Human Rights, Liberty Access and Peace Defenders' Foundation (HURIDE) in a press briefing in Abuja, yesterday said the alleged garrulous Minister should throw in the towel due to  his anti-media,  and anti-people disposition, which are official policies of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Government.

Addressing newsmen,  the Chairman, Board of Trustees ( BoT) of HURIDE, Dede Uzor A,Uzor, said the Minister has outlived his usefulness and has nothing to offer to Nigeria  again except deceptive and chronic lies.

Going by his recent utterances , Dede Uzor said,  that Nigerian youths are happy with this administration, was a clear indication that he  was not in tune with the realities in the country.

He said imposing N3m fine on the private television stations in the country for showing the photo footage of the shooting of the defenceless youths at Lekki toll gate by people believed to be soldiers of the Nigerian Army  was undemocratic and despotic.

The Chairman said the fine  and threat by Muhammed Buhari to regulate the social media  were  all deliberate  and calculated attempt to muzzle the media from prying into the anti-people policies of this Government.

Dede called on the Minister  and the  National Broadcasting   Commission (NBC), to  as  a matter of urgency rescind the  obnoxious fine placed on Channel television, AIT,   and   Arise television.

He said Muhammed's insistence on regulating social media  showed that the government increasingly becoming despotic and therefore paranoid  about the media.

He said they  apparently  do not want people  and the world to know their  anti-democratic  tendencies.

"But it negates the constitution of the country to abridge the free speech. It will never see the light of the day. We will mobilise democratic forces to pull down their antics when the time comes" Dede Uzor said.

He therefore advised the  APC controlled  Federal

Government to begin to offer good governance  to the people of Nigeria, "instead of the current mediocre, ethnic, religious governance."

He called on international media organisations, Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Nigerian  Guild of  Editors (NGE), to not only condemn Federal Government's despotic disposition, attempt to muscle the press  and other inglorious  activities of Muhammed.