The Government says that the documentary “promotes terrorism” and speaks of a “clear glorification of banditry”
July 29 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Government of Nigeria has promised to adopt measures against the British television network BBC for the recently published documentary on the operations of criminal groups in the north of the country, amid the deterioration of the security situation in the African country, and has highlighted that “promotes terrorism”.
The Minister of Information and Culture of Nigeria, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has called the documentary “unprofessional” and has criticized that “interviews were granted to ‘warlords’ and terrorist gangs, promoting terrorism in the country”.
Thus, he has stated that the authorities have sent complaints to the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission against the BBC and the newspaper ‘Daily Trust’ in relation to this documentary and has demanded “appropriate actions”, according to the Nigerian newspaper ‘Vanguard’.
Lai Mohammed has also said that the BBC has not adhered to the standards that it would have had to meet in the United Kingdom and has promised sanctions against both outlets. “What part of the Broadcasting Code has been violated by the BBC and ‘Daily Trust’ is being analyzed and I can assure you that there will be consequences,” she said.
“I guarantee that they will not go unpunished in the face of a clear glorification of terrorism and banditry in Nigeria. If they are not registered in Nigeria and only send signals to Nigeria, we will ask them to stop sending them, as simple as that,” the minister argued.
Along these lines, he stressed that “during the time of the IRA, the BBC would not dare to do what it is doing now in Nigeria.” “The media is the oxygen that terrorists and bandits use to breathe,” she has argued.
“It is unfortunate that reputable platforms such as the BBC give space to terrorists, showing their faces as if they were Nollywood stars – the name by which the film industry in Nigeria is known -“, Lai Mohammed concluded.
For its part, the British network has recalled that the Africa Eye program often deals with controversial and complex issues and has defended that the matter is of public interest and the actions of its journalists when preparing and publishing the documentary.
The 50-minute documentary analyzes the rise in the actions of criminal and terrorist gangs in the state of Zamfara (north), including interviews with leaders and members of these groups, responsible for dozens of attacks and the murder of hundreds of civilians and members of the security forces in recent months.
At the end of June, the authorities of the state of Zamfara asked the civilian population to arm themselves due to the fact that in recent weeks there has been an increase in insecurity, although the central government ruled against this option and warned that it would promote ” anarchy”.
Armed attacks in Nigeria, previously focused on the northeast of the country — where Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA) operate — have spread in recent months to other areas of the north and northwest, sparking the alarms about the possible expansion of these terrorist networks.
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