A front-line civil society group, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA has condemned the torture of a journalist Emmanuel Ogoigbe of The Sun in Warri, Delta State by some military men, referring to the action as primitive, reprehensible and despicable.
This was as it called for the unconditional release of a journalist in Kaduna, Mr. Jacob Onjewu Dickson who was detained for no just cause by operatives of the Nigerian Police Force on the illegal and absolutely arbitrary orders of the Kaduna State government.
The Rights group has resolved to petition the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai to demand immediate redress and for stringent sanctions to be mete out on the defaulting soldiers who have attempted to rubbish the reputation of the Army which as an institution under the current dispensation has set up a functional human rights desk.
In a statement issued on Tuesday by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Director of Media Affairs, Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA charged the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed to activate effective mechanisms for defending the constitutionally guaranteed human rights of journalists and to ensure that media workers are fully allowed to go about their duties as enshrined under Section 22 of the 1999 Constitution without let or hindrance.
The statement quoted Section 22 of the Nigerian constitution which holds that, “The Press, radio, television and other agencies of the mass media shall at all times be free to uphold the fundamental objectives contained in this Chapter and uphold the responsibility and accountability of the government to the people.”
HURIWA consequently tasked the Information Minister to pay particular attention to the promotion and protection of the constitutional rights of media workers who have come under increasing violent attacks from a range of reactionary forces including government officials and armed security forces.
While calling on the Nigerian Union of Journalists, NUJ, to defend the rights of their members at all times, the group in the statement, “recalled that soldiers from the 3 Battalion Effurun of the Nigerian Army last Saturday almost killed a senior correspondent of the SUN Newspapers in Warri, Elder Emmanuel Ogoigbe, torturing him until he fell into coma.
“Elder Ogoigbe, a seasoned journalist who had spent several decades in the profession with topflight national dailies, was battered by soldiers at a checkpoint in Okoribi Quarters, Off Uti Street, Effurun, for voluntarily alerting the uniformed men of a possible breakdown of law and order.
“The Sun journalist after being flogged by the irate soldiers led by Staff Sergeant O. Joseph, was further forced to drink and swim in stagnant drainage water. The Rights group said it would press charges if the hierarchy of the Army fails to take action.”
The statement also “recalled that Kaduna State Governor, Nasir Ahmad El-rufai reportedly ordered the arrest and subsequently sent a Kaduna-based journalist, Mr. Jacob Onjewu Dickson to prison custody, on the allegation of writing a story the state Government described as inciting.
“Jacob Onjewu was invited by the State Police Command over a story an online news medium www.autthenticnewsdaily to the effect that the governor was pelted and booed in Angwan Gado, a suburb of Malali axis in Kaduna North-local government area of the state where a communal clash was said to have broken out earlier in the week.”
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