Media Watchdog decries Death and Violence against Nigerian Journalists

Nigerian journalists are gripped by an unceasing cocktail of beatings, arrests, abusive trials, endemic corruption, public violence, according to a leading media body.

The Reporters Without Borders (RWB), in its 2007 annual report on Nigeria, lamented the repressive influence military figures, governors, ministers and businessmen have on the Nigerian media, who they say ‘enjoy complete impunity and have no respect for the right to news and information.’

‘Nigerian journalists yet again lived through an appalling year in 2006. They have had to face police brutality, arrests in certain cases for the least article that annoyed local authorities and corruption in the military, among politicians and businessmen,’ the France-based body said. ‘In a country in which power struggles are generally carried out against a backdrop of violence and corruption, journalists are the targets of choice.’

The fact-finding body cited the incident involving the detention of two Ebonyi-based journalists.

Imo Eze and Oluwole Elenyinmile of Ebonyi Voice, spent more than two months in prison from 14 June to 25 August, after carrying an article on 16 April, headlined, ‘Is Ebonyi A Failed State?’. They were charged by a court in Abakiliki, capital of Ebonyi state ‘with “conspiracy”, “sedition” and “defamation” of the governor, Sam Ominyi Egwu.’

The European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought winner, alleged that government used judicial procedures when journalists challenged President Olusegun Obasanjo.It cited the detention of Mike Gbenga Aruleba, presenter of a political TV programme on Africa Independent Television (AIT) and Rotimi Durojaiye, a Daily Independent reporter, both of whom spent two days in prison.

The body alleged that on 14 May, SSS agents burst into its offices and took the tape of a documentary about failed attempts by previous Nigerian leaders to cling on to power.

The body wrote: ‘African Independent Television (AIT), the country’s oldest private channel, had been in the authorities’ sights since it broadcast national assembly debates live on the controversial issue of an amendment to the 1999 constitution, presented by supporters of President Obasanjo, which would have allowed, among other things, the president and the federal state governors to remain in power for four further years.’

It chronicled the death of Godwin Agbroko, chairman of the editorial board of ThisDay, who was found dead at the wheel of his car on 22 December, by a roadside in the Isolo district , just after he had left his office and Omololu Falobi, a former journalist.
A quote from Tobor Agbroko - Agbroko’s son, was given - who told the Nigerian press that : “He [Agbroko] had a telephone which was worth several thousand Nairas, which was left untouched. His cash, wrist watch and other things were also not touched.”

‘Godwin Agbroko, was a well-known journalist, who regularly had by-lined articles in ThisDay. A former editor of several newspapers under the military dictatorship (1993-1999), he continued to provide an ironic and uncompromising take on political life,’ Reporters Without Borders wrote.

Last year Omololu Falobi, a former journalist on the privately-owned daily The Punch, founder and executive director of Journalists Against AIDS(JAAIDS) was killed on 5 October around 10 pm, when he had just left the headquarters of the association, in the Ogba district of Lagos. He was rammed with several bullets at the wheel of his car.

The Reporters Without Borders have researchers who handle every continent. It was founded in 1985.It is registered in France as a non-profit organization.

Nigeria’s current media state, some say, is not far from Abacha’s media repression.

According to mediarightsagenda.org, on December 2 1997, a Benue State correspondent of TheNews magazine, Sunday Orinya, was arrested at the Benue Hotel, Makurdi, where he had gone for assignment, and taken to the Government House in Makurdi, Benue State, where he was stripped naked and severely beaten with a horse-whip and dumped in a hotel for hours. This ordeal was allegedly ordered by the State administration that was offended by a story he wrote. The guardian newspaper was shut down as well.

However critics say much has improved since 1999, when Nigeria embraced democracy.