Security Operatives and Indiscriminate Arrest of Journalists

There has been series of indiscriminate arrest of journalists lately by different arms of Nigeria security operatives with most of them denying the arrest and or even denying bail to the arrested.

On August 5, policemen numbering about 15 in plain clothes broke into a hotel room in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, where Isaac Bristol, a microblogger and leak journalist known popularly as @PIDOMNigeria had lodged, and abducted him.

He was later transported by his abductors to the Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) in Abuja.

Prior to this trip to the FCID, he had been in solitary confinement for at least six days in an anti-kidnapping unit. After spending several days at the anti-kidnapping unit, he was again transferred to a different facility.

On August 25, the police decided to take things one notch up by again denying Bristol access to his lawyers and family members.

He was accused of a breach of the Official Secrets Act (OSA), terrorism financing, espionage, treasonable felony, computer wire fraud and unauthorised removal of classified documents.

On August 14, ‘Fisayo Soyombo, the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), voluntarily reported at the Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre (NPF-NCC) in Abuja based on publicly available information that “he was wanted by the police”.

Soyombo honoured the invitation in the company of Abimbola Ojenike, FIJ’s lawyer and kept for eight hours before being eventually released on bail for an investigative report FIJ had published earlier. As part of the bail conditions, he must report at the NPF-NCCC headquarters in Abuja for bi-weekly meetings.

Daniel Ojukwu, an FIJ senior reporter, was abducted and detained for 10 days by the police in May for the same story.

The most recent, Adejuwon Soyinka, a journalist with the Conversation Africa, was arrested in Lagos by the DSS on Sunday 25th August, after he was placed on a watchlist by an unnamed agency.

These and many more are the types of arrest that have been made in the country with several agencies and professional bodies calling on the Nigerian government to step into the issues.

While some people believed that it may be the security operatives that are acting on their own volition out of the ambience of the law, some other concerned citizens argued that it may be the government using the security operatives to achieve their own sinister motive.

Osun Spring however find both arguments valid seeing that Security Operatives are also a part of government and for every of such arrest, there are better ways to effect to handle it, best of which is to invite any journalist that may have been accused or found with wrong doing.

Section 39 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria provides freedom of expression and the press, also section 22 of the constitution gives the press, the responsibility of holding the government and people accountability.

Osun Spring notes that it is the job of journalists to hold the government and its officials accountable and so it is described as Press Freedom. Its however condemnable that the indication is like the government is trying to silent journalists.

While Osun Spring calls on journalists to ensure that due diligence is done on every report and investigation, we also call on the government to allow journalists do their job without any form of fear of intimidation or arrest.