Nigeria's broadcasting regulator has asked TV stations to curb their reporting of insecurity in the country by withholding details of incidents and victims, in what a leading civil society group described as a 'sweeping gag order'.
They should do this by"not giving details of either the security issues or victims of these security challenges" and by"advising guests and/or analysts on programmes not to polarise the citizenry with divisive rhetoric", the letter said.
The civil society group Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project called on President Muhammadu Buhari to instruct the NBC to withdraw the document. SERAP said reporting on the growing violence was in the public interest, and the regulator's instructions would have a chilling effect. Buhari's two spokesmen declined to comment on the matter, while the NBC did not respond to requests for comment.
Buhari, a military ruler in the 1980s who returned to power as an elected civilian in 2015, has been accused of an assault on freedom of speech over his government's decision in June to ban Twitter in Nigeria after the platform removed one of his posts.
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