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Atik Mohammed has kicked against the call for the National Media Commission to be vested with more power to regulate media activities in the country.

The National Media Commission (NMC), responsible for monitoring and censoring media contents, is seen to be less proactive as the media, primarily radio and television, is flooded with indecent and offensive publications and materials.

It’s become the stock-in-trade of some media stations to show money-doubling, ritual or fetish, X-rated contents among others which offend the media laws and ethical standards of the media.

This has ignited discussions about the need or otherwise for the authority of the National Media Commission to be extended beyond the remit they currently operate within.

But the former General Secretary of the People's National Convention (PNC), Atik Mohammed, argues that giving the NMC more power or reviewing the laws to let it have some kind of extreme authority may result in stifling of free speech.

He noted that though he condemns indecent media contents, making the NMC have almost an absolute power may lead to media tyranny on the part of the Commission.

“There’s a thin line between an empowered NMC and an overbearing NMC. And that line is so thin that we can easily cross it to make the NMC that we want to become powerful . . . it could become something that undermines free expression,” he said on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo' morning show.

To Atik, there is nothing wrong with the existing laws, thus what is expected of the NMC is for them to be efficient.

“In the meantime, let’s insist more on efficiency, on effectiveness because the NMC are many times not proactive,” he stressed.

He also appealed to the media station owners to help the NMC by instituting some internal mechanisms and strict saction regime that deter media practitioners from misconducting themselves.