Journalists and media executives have been advised to familiarise themselves with laws increasingly used to suppress press freedom in Nigeria.
The call came during a workshop convened by the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development, CJID, in Lagos, aimed at addressing the legal pressures facing the media. Titled ‘Navigating Legal Challenges, Laws That Criminalise Journalism, and Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation’, or SLAPPs for short, the session brought together media professionals and legal experts.
Premium Times Editor-in-Chief Musikilu Mojeed, who pointed out areas of vulnerability in newsrooms, warned that SLAPPs had become tools of intimidation, deployed to silence critical reporting and curtail constitutional freedoms.
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Legal expert Solomon Okedara noted that such lawsuits are rarely about winning in court but rather about exhausting media organisations into silence or insolvency.
Radio Now’s General Manager, Kamri Apollo, stressed the importance of legal literacy within newsrooms, urging practitioners to remain vigilant and informed to better shield themselves from targeted legal assaults.
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