The Nigerian Press Organisation (NPO) has asked the House of Representatives to drop a bill seeking to amend the Nigerian Press Council Act.
The organisation objected to the bill during a public hearing on the bill on Thursday organised by the House Committee on Information, Culture, Ethics and Values.
NPO is the umbrella organisation for the Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) and the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ).
The Editor-in-Chief of the Leadership newspaper, Azubike Ishiekwene, who represented the organisation at the hearing, asked the lawmakers to drop the proposed bill because of an ongoing court case.
He said 17 out of the 39 clauses in the bill are parts of litigation since 1999.
He recounted that the eight Senate also dropped the bill due to the pending litigation.
However, in his response, the chairman of the committee, Olusegun Olatubosun (APC, Oyo), said the court process would not stop the committee from discharging its constitutional function of making laws.
A coalition of civil society organisations comprising, Premium Times Centre For Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ), Media Rights Agenda (MRA), International Press Centre (IPC) and the Centre for Media Law and Advocacy in a joint memorandum, also highlighted some clauses in the bill.
The Executive Director of IPC, Lanre Arogundade, who presented the position of the group, urged the committee to adopt the paths of Ghana and South Africa in the formulation of laws on media.