Benjamin Omoike I Tuesday, May 23, 2017
IKEJA, Lagos, Nigeria – Indications have emerged that the Lagos State Government has concluded plans to review the existing Newspaper Law in the state, so as to effectively regulate their activities.
The state’s Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Steve Ayorinde, who gave the hint on Tuesday while addressing a press conference on the activities of his ministry in the past one year, said the exiting Newspaper Law in the state had become, in his words, obsolete.
According to him, the review was necessitated by the need to make the existing law more effective and in tune with modern day reality.
His words, “In view of the realization that the State Newspaper Cap Law is obsolete, the State Government has commenced the process of reviewing existing Newspaper Law Cap No2 of 2003 with a view to making it more effective and in tune with modern reality.
“The review attempt is not to stifle the media. The idea is to move with the trends and development of the time. It is for the good of the journalism profession.”
He assured that once the review is completed, media stakeholders would be invited to a meeting in order to intimate them with the provisions of the law and their obligations before enactment.
“You can’t operate as a print and not be registered with the ministry. The media space has been going through transformation and the review is in line with the changes in the media space,” he said.
According to Ayorinde, the unavailability of the true figure of the publishing media houses that operate in the state is a great challenge in terms of documentation and billing.
He said the review is about how the ministry can be empowered to register online media, tract who is who and know from where they are operating.
While claiming that 90 percent of the online media are based in Lagos, Ayorinde enjoined online media publishers to come forward to identify themselves with their location, adding that the review was being looked at from the point of the media and the law.
In order to sustain the current tempo of development in Lagos Television (LTV), Ayorinde said plans were afoot in the coming year to purchase a new transmitter as a stop gap measure for the station before the completion of Digital Transmission switchover.
The Commissioner said the state government had repositioned its printing corporation, saying the Lagos State Governor Ambode recently unveiled a new state-of-the-art printing press for Lagos Printing Corporation.
