NIGERIA sion. There is the Official Secrets Act which criminalizes both the provider and the receiver of information. The terms of what constitutes a threat to national security are not specified and can therefore be used arbitrarily. Also the Nigeria Press Council Act and the National Broadcasting Commission Act under which the National Broadcaster was set up contain several constraining clauses which limit freedom. And there is the Criminal Defamation Law on the statute books. In the case of civil defamation courts have been known to award heavy punitive damages which hastened the collapse of some media institutions. Although, it was once declared illegal by the courts, the colonial law of sedition has not been expunged from the statute books and was recently invoked against some journalists from the weekly magazine “Insider”. The general feeling was that the constitutional framework for freedom of expression is rather weak. Many laws have been there for years and even decades but it has never been reviewed whether they are actually in line with the constitution. Many of them have also not been tested or challenged in the courts. SCORES: Individual scores: 1; 2; 1; 1; 1; 1; 3; 2; 1; 2; 1 Total score: 16 Average score: 1.5 1.4 Entry into and practice of the journalistic profession is legally unrestricted ANALYSIS: The 1992 Nigeria Press Council (NPC) Act in particular places restriction on the practice of journalism by stipulating that journalists 6 African Media Barometer - Nigeria 2008