Femi Gbajabiamila, the speaker of the House of Representatives has distanced himself from Bill threatening press freedom.
He said on Monday that he would not be part of the ongoing move to stampede the press and freedom of speech.
He also allayed fears over the purported removal of provision for electronic transmission of election results from the committee’s report.
Speaking at second annual dinner/award of excellence, held at the instance of the House of Representatives Press Corps,he, however, noted that there is nowhere in the world where freedom of expression is absolute.
He also assured Nigerians of the readiness of the House to present the report of the security summit to President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday, as well as lay the report on the Electoral Act (Amendment) bill before embarking on the two-month recess.
“I will not be part of any bill that will gag the press. I have made that abundantly clear. No bill will come to the floor of the House that seeks to gag the press, because the press is supposed to be the voice of the people.
“I hold very strongly the view that there is press freedom and there is freedom of expression. There has always been and there will always be.
“However, what we call freedom of expression, and I think it is important for us as Nigerians to listen to one another and understand each other, so that we can make progress as a nation. “There is nowhere in the world where freedom of expression is absolute. Freedom of expression is limited to the extent that it does not affect another person’s freedom.
“Freedom of expression is not absolute and this is made abundantly clear, even in the constitution itself. If you go to Section 45 of your Constitution, it tells you how your freedom, which someone said was guaranteed, is constitutionally allowed where the government may limit that freedom for the sake of health, morality, and security. It is written in black and white.
“So whilst I will never allow gaging of the press, I worry where, at every turn the National Assembly tries to promulgate the law with the best of intentions, people descend on the National Assembly. Some just jump on the bandwagon without even knowing the details, without even knowing the issues.
“I am using this as a sample. This press council bill, I called the proponent of the bill, who you all know very well and asked, ‘What is going on? What have you done? What is this bill? He tried to break it down to me. I have not read it personally myself, I will confess to that, but I will read it in the next couple of days to have the details. I just have a perfunctory general idea of the contents. He told me he had a meeting with all the stakeholders. I was not present at the meeting. But that is what they wanted.
“Whatever provision that is in that bill that is inimical to the development of the press, we will remove or tweak in such a way that everybody will be happy.
“But from my understanding and I don’t know how far this is true, the issue was not about any provision. The issue is that we do not even want any bill to regulate. We don’t want to be regulated. Now that gives me concern because first, we are getting to a point in this country that nobody wants to be regulated. NGOs don’t want to be regulated, religious bodies don’t want to be regulated. Social media does not want to be regulated. Professors of universities go on strike because they do not want to be on the same payment platform as everybody else. Everybody just wants to have a free reign.
“What is the government there for if not to regulate for good governance. We talk about good governance but we don’t want to regulate and achieve good governance.
“So regulation is an essential element of good governance. We cannot just let the people or any institution run amok. The executive is regulated. The judiciary, to a large extent, is regulated, the legislature is regulated. Just name it. Institutions are meant to be regulated,” he said.
Speaking on Electoral Act (amendment), Gbajabiamila said just as he stressed on the floor of the House, he was not aware that any provision as agreed to by the joint committees was changed.
