In a military dictatorship regime, the military control the affair of the nation with decree which is not subjected to anyone's or institutional opinion. The different between the military and democratic regime is the constitutional right of the people to always express their views and opinions in a democratic system. Democracy gives people the opportunity to express their pleasure or displeasure on any government policy or administration. The people in this respect can express such views through any available means such as print and electronic media, protest, congress and so on. In fact, the people hold the mandate in the thumb and can give it to any person or political party at any giving time.
If the difference between military and democratic system is the constitution right to freedom of expression, what then happen if this right is being taken away in a democratic system?
As the ongoing clampdown on some print media for days now, it is important we remind our leaders especially the presidency that the resultant effect may jeopardise our democratic system if the trend is not checked. I think the president is the chief security officer of the nation and if the nation is gradually running into military and democratic anarchy then, the chief security officer has the moral and constitutional right to call the military to order. With the flimsy excuse giving by the military, I believe Nigeria military are just making themselves an object of ridicule among their counterpart around the world. They have allowed partisan politics to take away professional ethics and moral from their system.
If truly the military is acting under any intelligence to have detained distributig vehicle of some newspaper media on allegation of conveying some contraband materials, then how many minutes does it takes to check a vehicle? If true, it can't last up to an hour to search a vehicle and allow the vehicle to move on if found free of such. The military knew fully well that the newspaper house would only make their sale in the morning and hence, deliberately delay the distribution to run the media house at lost. This is an affront on our constitutional right to freedom of expression and right to information. If the newspapers are not sold, definitely lost is incurred.
The seeming implications of all these military madness is that newspaper houses will be forced to print whatever the military wants to see alone. It is a very good way to run them at lost and hence, collapse the business. It forces editors to think twice before talking about the nation or people in power if they don't want their papers cut short of distribution. It is also a way of killing the moral of the media houses by subjecting them to irrational censor of the information to be printed. Above all, it shows high level of lawlessness and lack of ethical conduct on our military. All these also have international effect on the integrity of our men in uniform as well. No wonder that our men in uniform are always rated high in term of extra judicial activities and human rights violation.
This is just a call to our leaders, military and most especially the president who is the Chief Security Officer of the nation to safe our democracy from being eroded by military mentality. It is a call as well to safe the prediction that Nigeria may cease to be by 2015. Also, a way to reflect on whether we are practising democracy or just civil rule as claimed by many. The media remains the voice of the people and any attempt to silence this voice by any seen or unseen forces must be repel by all. We must all rise to protect our constitutional right to freedom of views, opinions and expressions.
Safe the media, safe the people and safe our constitutional right to expression.
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