BEVERLY HILLS, August 28, (THEWILL) – Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has revealed that the federal government will not make any law or directive that will gag the press in its ongoing fight against hate speech and fake news.
Mohammed gave the assurance when he paid a working visit to the headquarters of TV Continental (TVC) in Lagos on Monday describing reports of a directive from the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) regulating phone-in programmes and Newspaper review on TV and radio programmes as fake news insisting that there was no such directive whatsoever from NBC or his office to any media house.
He recalled that there was a brainstorming meeting among stakeholders including NBC, media owners and others in Lagos where issues affecting the industry were discussed positing that it was one of the participants at the meeting that leaked out the issues raised which were never adopted as government directive or policies.
He said the position of the government has been and still remains that the industry should regulate itself and therefore, urged media houses to discharge their responsibilities in accordance with the dictates of their guiding codes to check the alarming rate of hate speech and fake news.
He said the government would not make any new laws to tackle the challenge of hate speech because there are enough provisions for it saying that the anti-terrorism act 2011 defines hate speech as an act deliberately done with malice and which may seriously harm or damage a country or seriously intimidate a population.
Reacting to why there is an upsurge in incidents of hate speech and fake news in the country, the Minister said that the purveyors were being paid with stolen funds to whittle down the anti-corruption stance of the government but declared that no amount of hatred would obliterate the solid achievements recorded by the administration.
