Being a journalist in Nigeria is becoming too risky, no thanks to the rising onslaught against media practitioners by overzealous security agents. In a crackdown reminiscent of the brutal era of military dictatorship, the Nigeria Police Force and State Security Service agents have resorted to the harassment of journalists on flimsy grounds. There is no justification for these draconian measures by the security agents. Without a free press, democracy is doomed. The Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, and the SSS Director-General, Lawal Daura, should take action against officers who overstep their bounds in the line of duty.
Recently, Daily Independent and Daily Trust journalists have tasted the bitter pill of repression in the hands of the SSS and police officers. Tony Ezimakor, the Abuja bureau chief of the Independent, was the first to experience the crackdown when he was detained by the SSS for about a week in February without charges. According to the newspaper, Ezimakor honoured an invitation from the SSS over a story he wrote about the missing Chibok girls, but he ended up in detention. This is arbitrary, a clear abuse of the intelligence agency’s powers.
In tow, the police descended on Musa Kirshi, the Daily Trust’s correspondent, on March 13, on the National Assembly premises. His offence was that he facilitated an advert publication in that newspaper, which allegedly offended the interests of Governor Abubakar Badaru of Jigawa State. Kirshi was released after some hours but this is a sign that neither the police nor the SSS understands that it has the duty to promote the law and gather intelligence for the common good. By leaving their main duties and surrendering to the ephemeral whims of political office holders, both agencies are subverting the law, and unjustifiably so.
The disturbing trend had earlier gained currency on the eve of Kirshi’s arrest. Major newspapers, including The PUNCH, The Nation, ThisDay, Tribune and Vanguard, were arbitrarily barred from covering President Muhammadu Buhari’s belated condolence visit to Benue State on March 12. The state had been under siege from herdsmen attacks, which have painted the Buhari administration in a bad light.
Such abridgement of constitutionally guaranteed rights is uncalled for under a democratic government. The real concern, however, is that these cases are not isolated. In January 2017, Nigerian Army operatives stormed the Premium Times and arrested the publisher of the online newspaper, Dapo Olorunyomi, and the judiciary correspondent, Evelyn Okakwu. The arrests followed a story about the counter-insurgency operations in the North-East, where the military are battling Boko Haram miscreants.
In a bizarre case in Ikotun, Lagos, in February, the police arrested the online editor of Vanguard newspaper, Aliyu Adekunle, for taking the photograph of police officers bullying commercial motorcycle operators. “When they accosted me and ordered me to enter their van, I insisted and asked them to tell me the crime I committed. They remained mum and pushed me inside their Black Maria,” he said. This is demeaning. Police officers who are not conversant with Section 39 of the 1999 Constitution, which enshrines the freedom of the mass media, are a danger to democracy.
On the pretext of preventing security breaches, the military hijacked newspaper delivery vans in June 2014 during the Goodluck Jonathan administration. Soldiers ransacked and seized newspaper copies, leading to serious financial losses to the media outfits. In the process, they brutalised vendors who protested the repression. To the chagrin of the discerning public, Jonathan justified the action by claiming that newspaper vans were a threat to security because they were being used to transport guns. It seems he (Jonathan) too, did not understand the role of the media in a democracy. Yet, in April 2017, President Muhammadu Buhari’s Chief Security Officer, Bashir Abubakar, audaciously expelled Lekan Adetayo, State House correspondent of The PUNCH, from the seat of government over a story on the President’s health. It took a national outcry for him to be recalled.
The Buhari government has to take a long, hard look at the operations of the security agencies. As the main opposition before 2015, his party, the All Progressives Congress, stridently condemned the then Jonathan government over the repression of human rights, particularly when police attacked some governors who visited in solidarity with the then Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi. Therefore, it should not tolerate the current sweeping abuse of journalists. Police officers who do so should face the music.
In the case of defamation, libel and other infractions by the media, there is only one way permissible — seeking redress in court. In July 2015, Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State dragged The Union to court over a publication in the newspaper about his asset declaration. Clearly, this is the pragmatic or enlightened way to handle the case.
Although the justice system is frustratingly slow, journalists and media organisations who are abused by security agents should also learn to litigate. They should not abort the judicial process midstream. Perhaps, by claiming damages against their oppressors, security agencies will then imbibe global best practices. For all of President Donald Trump’s tirades against the United States media over the so-called “fake news,” journalists are not being hauled into jail by the police or the Federal Bureau of Investigation officers. Conversely, his wife, Melania, in April 2017, was awarded damages by a British tabloid, Daily Mail, after she sued the newspaper for libel over her modelling career.
Muzzling the press is a one-way street to dictatorship and those who encourage such should be made to face the law. The media, through the Nigeria Union of Journalists, the Nigerian Guild of Editors and the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria, should unite against repression of journalists by the security agencies. They should institute court actions anytime these bullies obstruct media operations.
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