Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has condemned the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, and the management of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) for illegally slamming fines against private broadcasting stations for their transparent coverage of the #EndSARS protects.

Branding the Minister as “a pathetic hater of transparency and accountability,” the rights group said he has made himself “notorious as the most dangerous enemy of constitutional democracy.”

HURIWA asked President Muhammadu Buhari to order the quashing of the dictatorial and draconian financial sanctions which the group said violates the grund norm of Nigeria.

The rights group said the fines Imposed against the media houses for carrying out their statutory functions goes contrary to the unambiguous provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic which obliges the media to function as national conscience and to play the role of the uninhibited and unhindered purveyors of objective news to the people of Nigeria as encapsulated in section 22 of the Nigerian constitution.

The fines, HURIWA said, are “vexatious, illegal, unconstitutional and absolutely devoid of respect for the fundamental human rights of the citizens who ought to be informed qualitatively by both public and private media outlets in the best tradition of adherence to the principles of the rule of law and in obedience to the constitutional provisions on the fundamental freedoms including right to freedom of information.”

It affirmed: “We totally reject this resort to self help measures and primitive infliction of illegality by the minister of information and culture against media pluralism and for enforcing a non-enforceable set of rules which absolutely violates relevant sections of the constitution.

“The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) cannot validly and legally make legislation and cannot unilaterally institute financial sanctions, a function that belongs to the court of competent jurisdiction as enshrined in the section 6 of the Nigerian constitution.”

HURIWA recalled that the NBC had fined Channels Television, Arise Television and Africa Independent Television (AIT) for what it termed “unprofessional coverage” of the #EndSARS protests.

The rights group said the in-house rules made by NBC purporting to be a legislation authorising imposition of fines is unconstitutional and absolutely Illegal since the NBC is not the law making body recognised in section 4 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 as amended and the NBC cannot be the complainant the prosecutor and the judge in its own case and therefore cannot fine any broadcast stations since it is not a court of law. Those fines are null, void and of no moment.”