No government in the world has ever won a war against the press.
Killing the press is akin to dissolving the people which is well-nigh impossible.
A major booby-trap for the Nigerian government is the murky relationship with the media.
There is the raging talk now of regulating social media as a new dimension of gagging free speech and reining in the critical press.
You simply cannot gag the people. A simple trip to where impoverished Nigerians gather at the newspaper stands will amply show the unprintable things people say about the government of the day.
How can any regime stop that? The people must always have their say in whatever way! Nigerians let their voices carry at newspaper stands, beer parlours, in bukas, anywhere, anytime no matter the intended gags of any regime at any time.
It is incumbent on the government to develop a tough skin that can take criticism instead of trying to drive dissent underground in a so-called democracy.
In the early days of the regime there was the bad case of barring the African Independent Television (AIT) from covering President Muhammadu Buhari’s activities.
It became a bloomer no matter what Buhari’s apologists claimed then.
A President of a country has to be held to account. Once one aspires to public office there is no hiding place. As they say, if you are afraid of the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen!
Now the clear and present danger is the government’s refusal to obey court orders. For instance, the court has ordered the release of detained Omoyele Sowore but the DSS has refused to do that, deploying all makes of ridiculous excuses.
The matter has gone viral as the regime is pilloried for behaving like a military dictatorship.
The social media is taking the government to the cleaners as per the heedless shackling of the press in a very primitive manner.
Recalls had to be made to Buhari’s first incarnation as military head of state when he proclaimed that he would “tamper” with the press. He thereafter promulgated Decree 4 in which journalists were bound to be jailed even if they spoke the truth, so long as a public officer felt embarrassed by the story.
Back then the journalists then took the war back to Buhari re-christening his War Against Indiscipline (WAI) as War Against Everybody.
Of course, the government was promptly overthrown. It is such a pity that Nigerian leaders and some of their rabid followers never learn from the past.
Let’s recall the insightful words of Martin Niemöller (1892–1984), a prominent Protestant pastor who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps.
Niemöller wrote:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
What is bad is bad. The government must perforce learn the lack of commonsense in barring or banning the media. There is the prompt need to make amends.
Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, needs to do a recall how he used to be at liberty to criticise the past regime of then-President Goodluck Jonathan without being gagged.
The fact still remains that no regime, even that of Hitler, can win against the media.
The Nigerian government should learn from history so that it can earn some success in the annals of time.
If the regime wants to continue to dare the press, then the rulers should know that they are attempting to dissolve the people in a democracy.
Let’s end with the poem “The Solution” by Bertolt Brecht:
After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?