By Olayinka S. Yunusa
May 28, 2011, is a day that would go down in the history of Nigeria as the glorious day that President Goodluck Jonathan signed the Freedom of Information Bill as passed by the National Assembly, which became Freedom of Information Act (FOIA or Act). The Act is to foster transparency in governance and accountability. The FOIA guarantees the right to information within the control of public institutions to all Nigerians, regardless of age, class, or occupation. It effectively confers the ‘right to know’ on every Nigerian, the media inclusive!
The Nigerian media and civil society groups saw the Act as a veritable tool for investigative journalism and promotion of freedom of speech. It was heralded with pleasure, pomp and assurances and hoped that at last, the nation has embraced the path of probity in information dissemination and sourcing. This was the atmosphere of hope when the Act was passed by the immediate past government. But today, there are imminent changes reminiscent of the days of military juntas. This has provoked not only the debate but fear as many ask; if the media is witch-hunted, who’ll monitor the activities of government?
This new development in government-media relations betrays the letter and spirit of the Act, as Nigerian journalists are still being treated with disdain even when we are in a democracy. They are seen as busy-body whose act must be curtailed and contained. From a failed legislative attempt to contain online news to many other instances, it’s the role of the media that is usually the target. This scenario has caught the attention of the international community.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ, reported a lot of Nigerian journalists are being detained arbitrarily or charged to court for articles, piece or stories” which are seen by the powerful and mighty as personally offensive. Furthermore, the Nigerian police on January 4, 2018, denied at least 10 journalists access to the public commissioning of a dry port in Nigeria’s northwestern Kaduna state, and then assaulted at least two of the reporters.
According to accounts from the two reporters, Enemaku Ojochigbe and Taye Adeniyi of the Daily Trust newspaper, Nigerian police initially told journalists that there was not enough seats at the event in which President Muhammadu Buhari was due to attend. This was corroborated by Ojochigbe, who works for the privately owned African Independent Television (AIT) network Raypower FM.
In another related case, a federal court in Abuja is scheduled to arraign two brothers on cybercrime and terrorism-related offences on March 1, in a report filed by their lawyer Obunike Ohaegbu to the CPJ. Responding, the body in a release by CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal from New York, told the public that “Timothy and Daniel Elombah are journalists and not terrorists who should be free to continue their journalism without legal harassment or fear of going to jail. Authorities should drop all legal proceedings against them and review Nigeria’s cybercrime law to ensure it is constitutional and is not abused to silence the press.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists also give an insight of a judge who ordered a journalist to be detained on charges of “breach of public peace” and false reporting over an article he wrote for the daily Vanguard, according to court documents seen by CPJ. During an arraignment in the city of Kaduna on July 12, Binniyat pleaded not guilty to both charges, his lawyer, James Kanyip, told CPJ. The lawyer said that Binniyat, who is recovering from an accident, arrived at the court on crutches. At the hearing, the judge said he was feeling unwell and ordered Binniyat to be remanded in custody until July 20 to give the judge time to read the journalist’s argument, Kanyip said.
In another development that may be cited as a violation of the rights of the press, the Nigerian Police and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, raided the Lagos headquarters of the daily newspaper The Sun, on the morning of June 12, 2017, according to a statement then released by the media house.
The statement said that police ordered security staff at gunpoint to take them around the building, intimidated staff, and prevented employees from entering or leaving the premises. “We strongly view this onslaught against The Sun as a personal vendetta by the leadership of the commission, and by extension, a declaration of war against the media,” the Sun said in its statement.
The raid came a few weeks after Ibrahim Magu, acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, threatened in March 2017 to sue the newspaper for libel over its reporting. A lawyer for Magu filed a civil suit with the high court on June 22, demanding damages over an article that Magu said defamed him. However, a statement by the commission denied any link between the raid and Magu’s statement in March on his plans to file a lawsuit, which the commission said he is doing in his capacity as a private citizen. The commission said the raid was connected to a nearly 10-year-old interim order of forfeiture on the shareholding of The Sun newspapers and that the agency was trying to “ascertain the state of the assets of the publishing company.” The order relates to a lawsuit filed in 2007 against the paper’s publisher, Orji Uzor Kalu, according to media reports.
The 2007 case has remained under appeal since 2008, according to court documents seen by CPJ and media reports. “The Department of State Security DSS last week invited Ezimkor, who is a bureau chief of a private owned media, an invitation he voluntarily honored but was detained over a story he had written February 22nd, 2018 where he detailed the ransom paid for the release of the abducted Chibok girls and the roles played by a Swiss negotiator and the Nigeria Government. He was quizzed for days and asked to disclose the sources where he got the classified document but after 7 days in detention, he was released unconditionally. This act by the agency was an attempt to coerce a journalist to divulge his source of information as against the rule.
Despite the dawn of democracy in 1999, it is regrettably sad or so it seems that the Nigerian Government is yet to appreciate the journalists and the press as the Fourth Estate of the Realms. In 1984 Buhari/Idiagbon junta convicted and jailed two Guardian journalists. The brutal murder of Bagauda Kalto still remains fresh in the mind of the media. This has propped up the big question: for how long will journalists suffer human right abuses under various governments in Nigeria?
Yunusa wrote in from Abuja
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