NATIONAL INTEREST, FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND THE NIGERIAN PRESS IN CONTEMPORARY DEMOCRATIC CONTEXT

Abstract

In all civilized societies, the media stand as an independent institution that checks the activities of the people and the government. In Nigeria, apart from the executive, the judiciary and the legislature, the media are regarded as the Fourth Estate of the Realm. From the Universal Declaration of Human Right, Article 19 provides freedom of expression as part of fundamental human rights. At the level of AU in Africa, the right to freedom of information and freedom of expression was also given due consideration especially in Article nine. The Nigerian Constitution of 1999 also guarantees the freedom of expression, specifically Section 39 of the Constitution which assigns a constitutional right, power, role, obligation and duty to the press. Nigerian Constitutions since then have upheld this role. Section 22 of the same Constitution recognises the media as the “Fourth Estate of the Realm”. It therefore means the media are seen as an oversight of the government and its agencies. The Freedom of Information Act establishes that information should be made available and that the citizens should feel free to express their personal views. Thus, in order to achieve the objectives of this paper, the following serve as the basic tools of inquiry: do Nigerian media have the teeth to bite as far as freedom of expression is concerned? Or the proceeding provisions are just give-and-take documents? These questions are the main focus of this paper. The paper employs a multidisciplinary research methodology using a combination of socio-legal methods to obtain the contextual data. In addition, selected pertinent judicial decisions in law reports and journals were reviewed to examine the freedom of expression. The paper also critically examined non-legal sources for investigative or supporting information. Among the technical documents reviewed are: The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999; Freedom of Information Act among others.