THE Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP and Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development, CJID, have sued President Muhammadu Buhari, asking the court to declare arbitrary and illegal the N5 million imposed on Trust TV, Multichoice Nigeria Limited, NTA-Startimes Limited and TelCom Satellite Limited, over their documentaries on terrorism in the country.
Joined in the suit as Defendants are the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed; and the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC.
Meanwhile, no date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.
NBC had last week imposed the fines on the media houses, claiming that their documentaries “glorified the activities of bandits and undermined national security in Nigeria”, and contravene the provisions of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code.
But in the suit number filed on behalf of the plaintiffs by their lawyers, Kolawole Oluwadare and Ms Adelanke Aremo, last Friday, at the Federal High Court, Lagos, SERAP and CJID are seeking: “an order setting aside the arbitrary and illegal fines of N5 million and any other penal sanction unilaterally imposed by the NBC on these media houses simply for carrying out their constitutional duties.”
The plaintiffs said: “The NBC and Mohammed have not shown that the documentaries by the media houses would impose a specific risk of harm to a legitimate state interest that outweighs the public interest in the information provided by the documentaries.
“The documentaries by these independent media houses pose no risk to any definite interest in national security or public order.
