By Lasisi Olagunju
"Whatever
the party holds to be the truth is truth. It is impossible to see reality
except by looking through the eyes of the party." – George
Orwell, in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
*Buhari
We are entering the era of enforced
silence. When you firmly fold your lips, you are not likely to hop into
trouble. That is the next harbour the ship of Nigeria is sailing to - the port
of compulsory silence. This is not about noisy Twitter and its first cousins
and the ongoing desperate efforts to murder them in Nigeria. This is about the
real next level. Serpentine bills have slithered into our National Assembly
seeking to stop the media, mainstream and new, from saying what they are not
told to say or report what the people are not authorized to say. The government
is really tired of holding conversations with the people and explaining its
acts and (in)actions. It earnestly yearns for the opposite of conversation:
Silence. Quietness. Soundlessness. It is high time the leaky mouth of the media
was sewn up. That is what the regime is working on - it wants a nation of
castrated subjects with no rights to rights. Enough is enough. The
process is on.
