The Nigerian Press Organisation (NPO) has called on the Federal Government and the National Assembly to take urgent steps to protect Nigeria’s information ecosystem, warning that the unchecked dominance of global digital platforms poses a growing threat to national security, social cohesion and democratic governance.
In a strategic appeal addressed to the Presidency and the National Assembly, the NPO said Nigeria was approaching a critical inflexion point in its democratic and digital evolution, noting that decisions taken now would shape the future of journalism and public discourse for decades.
“The question before the Nigerian state is clear: can a democracy of Nigeria’s scale, diversity and complexity afford to surrender control of its information ecosystem to unregulated global digital gatekeepers?” the organisation said.
The NPO, which comprises the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria (NPAN), the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON), the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP) and the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), stressed that its intervention was made in the public interest and not as private advocacy.
According to the organisation, the rapid expansion of global digital platforms has fundamentally altered Nigeria’s media environment, creating a structural imbalance of power that threatens the sustainability of professional journalism.
It noted that global platforms now dominate digital advertising markets, while algorithms controlled outside Nigeria increasingly determine what Nigerians see, amplify or ignore. It added that Nigerian news content is monetised at scale without proportionate reinvestment in local journalism, with revenues that once sustained domestic newsrooms increasingly extracted offshore.
“This is not a conventional market disruption,” the NPO said. “It is the emergence of private, transnational gatekeepers over public discourse, operating beyond the effective reach of national democratic accountability.”
The organisation warned that the implications for Nigeria go far beyond media economics, particularly in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious federation where credible journalism plays a stabilising role.
“When trusted news institutions weaken, misinformation, disinformation and digitally manipulated narratives expand unchecked, fuelling polarisation, grievance mobilisation and insecurity,” it said, adding that no counterterrorism or intelligence framework could fully compensate for a collapsed information order.
On democratic governance, the NPO cautioned that elections and public accountability depend on reliable information, warning that algorithm-driven virality exposes democratic processes to distortion, coordinated falsehoods and foreign influence.
The organisation also linked press freedom to economic viability, arguing that constitutional guarantees alone are insufficient. “A press that struggles to pay salaries, fund investigations and retain talent is, in effect, unfree, regardless of legal protections,” it said.
It further expressed concern over newsroom contraction, job losses and declining professional standards, describing the erosion of journalism revenue as a loss of skilled labour, institutional memory and national capacity.
Describing journalism as strategic national infrastructure, the NPO said its outputs — verified facts, investigative scrutiny and balanced reporting — are public goods comparable to education, public health and the judiciary.
However, it said the current digital market structure allows global platforms to extract disproportionate value from these public goods while weakening their producers, undermining the long-term resilience of Nigeria’s information ecosystem.
The NPO pointed to global precedents, noting that the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and South Africa have adopted regulatory frameworks to curb digital gatekeeper dominance and ensure fair compensation for news content.
“Nigeria would not be acting in isolation,” the organisation said, adding that sovereign states around the world have concluded that non-intervention is no longer a neutral option.
It urged the Federal Government to adopt a Nigerian-designed, legally anchored framework that recognises journalism as a public-interest activity, corrects extreme bargaining power imbalances and ensures fair remuneration for Nigerian news content, while preserving innovation and competition.
The organisation noted that institutions such as the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) and the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) already have the statutory authority to enforce proportionate remedies.
“This is not a call for protectionism,” the NPO said. “It is a call for strategic leadership to ensure that Nigeria’s democratic conversation is not quietly outsourced to opaque commercial algorithms beyond national control.”
The NPO concluded that protecting the Nigerian press is not an industry rescue but an investment in national stability, democratic durability and Nigeria’s standing as a constitutional democracy.
