MRA condemns incessant police harassment of journalists
The Media Rights Agenda (MRA) Monday condemned the incessant harassment and intimidation of journalists, saying recent incidents of abductions, arbitrary arrests, detention and other forms of attacks against media professionals by security and law enforcement agencies have reached alarming levels and are posing a grave danger to media freedom and democracy in Nigeria.
Describing the harassment and intimidation of journalists by the police and other security agencies as relentless, MRA cited as latest examples of this trend, the cases of Ms Ayomide Eweje, Managing Editor of “Alimosho Today”, a community news outlet based in Lagos; a former reporter with the news organisation, Mr. Wisdom Okezie and the publisher, Mr. Oluwamodupe Akinola, who have been asked by the Nigeria Police to report to the office of the Assistant Inspector-General (AIG) of Police, Zone 2 Command in Onikan, Lagos, tomorrow,to “facilitate” an undisclosed investigation.
The three were invited through separate letters dated August 22, 2024, signed by Mr. Martin Nwogoh, a Deputy Commissioner of Police, on behalf of the AIG in charge of Zone 2 headquarters of the Nigeria Police, claiming that the office was “investigating a matter reported to the Assistant Inspector-General of Police” without saying who reported the matter or what information was required from those being invited to enable them prepare adequately.
The deputy police commissioner asked Ms Eweje, Mr. Okezie and Mr. Akinola to report to the officer in charge of the Zonal Monitoring Unit, stressing that “this is a fact-finding exercise in the interest of justice and fairness.”
In a statement issued in Lagos by the head of its Legal Department, Ms Obioma Okonkwo, MRA said the failure of the police to provide details in the letter of invitation was an ambush, adding that it had identified a pattern in numerous such invitations by the police designed to lure journalists to the police station only to detain them when they report in response to the supposed invitation.
Saying that it was curious that the Police had become the weapon of choice for public officials and other rich or powerful individuals seeking to silence and punish journalists who publish negative reports about them, Ms Obioma said: “It seems that the Police now consider journalism a crime such that anybody who is unhappy about any report published by the media is able to get the police to hunt down any journalist involved with uncommon zeal even as real criminals go about their business unchallenged for the most part.”
