By Veshe Ofei
To mark the 2021 World Press Day (WPD), usually observed globally every May 3rd, President Muhammadu Buhari, recommits to freedom of the press, and urges media professionals to wield freedom responsibly, and without licentiousness.
The Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, in a statement made available to the media, quoted his boss as saying that freedom of the press is an irreducible minimum in a democracy that would flourish.
Buhari added that freedom must, however, be used responsibly.
“That everything is permitted does not mean that there are no rules of correctness, particularly in a polity seriously challenged as ours now,” President Buhari says. “The media must be sensitive to what we are going through as a country, and anything that would exacerbate the situation, and further inflame passions and emotions, should be avoided.
The media needs to ensure that while informing, educating, entertaining and setting agenda for public discourse, it does not encourage incendiary words and actions that could further hurt our unity in diversity.”
Licentious freedom, the President says, is different from freedom with responsibility, and charges the Nigerian media to embrace the latter, rather than the former.
On the part of government, Buhari pledges greater cooperation with the media to discharge its duties, in line with the theme of this year’s World Press Freedom Day, ‘Information as a Public Good.’
He charges those who manage information for government to do everything in public interest, while also encouraging the media to use the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act available to make its jobs easier.
The President submits that it is very vital to have access to reliable information in an era of misinformation, disinformation and hate speech, all to cause discord in society.