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Attacks On The Media In February 2004
Task Force Men Assault Journalists, Vendors
Men of the Delta State Task Force on destruction of illegal structures
made up of combined men and officers of the Army, Navy and Police on
February 12 demolished a newspapers distribution outlet situated at
Airport junction, along Airport Road, Warri Delta State.
Journalists and newspaper distributors who dared to ask why their depot
was being destroyed were beaten up and injured by the men of the Task
Force who were armed with automatic weapons and teargas canisters. They
also went ahead to shoot teargas canisters on the journalists and vendors
and nearly made one of the journalists go blind when one of the Task Force
men released a teargas canister into his eyes and held it there for about
two minutes.
Newspaper distributors at the depot threatened to stop all distributions
for the day because of the unprovoked attack. It took the pleas and
assurances of the journalists that they were going to take up the matter
with the state authorities to get the distributors shelve their protest.
Federal Government Expels Foreign Correspondent
Ms. Silvia Sansoni, accredited correspondent of Forbes magazine who had
been based in and reporting Nigeria for the past 18 years was on February
19 deported from the country by the Federal government. Silvia who also
reported on Nigeria for The Economist of London was accused of continuing
to work without a valid visa, resident permit or press accreditation. She
was taken to the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos under
police escort and put on a Paris-bound flight.
The nation’s Ministry of Information accused Ms. Sansoni of failing to
regularize her stay in Nigeria even after her one year accreditation to
work as a journalist expired in July last year. The Ministry said in a
statement that: “Contrary to the impression that she was deported for her
stories on Nigeria, she was actually advised to leave the country because
of her flagrant disregard of Nigeria’s immigration laws and a reckless
abuse of the terms of her accreditation.”
She however denied the allegation of breaking Nigeria’s immigration rules
but said she was expelled from the country for reporting that a civil
servant had demanded US $800 bribe to regularise her residency status in
Nigeria.
She claimed that following her reporting of the bribery incident to Prof.
Jerry Gana who was then the Information Minister and a meeting with a US
Embassy official on the matter, she was advised to apply for a multiple
entry visa, that the immigration said there was no need for her to apply
for residency. She said that she was thereafter however subsequently
harassed by immigration officials claiming her documents were not in
order. She added that all the efforts she made to meet Gana’s successor,
Chief Chukwuemeka Chikelu, to resolve the issue were unsuccessful.
The Information Ministry’s statement signed by its Director of External
Publicity, Mr. Inyinga Dappa, added: “Miss Silvia Sansoni was issued a
Subject To Regularization (STR) Visa by the Consulate of Nigeria in New
York in year 2002 as the Nigeria Resident Correspondent for Forbes
Magazine based on application to this Ministry on her behalf by the
Magazine. She was duly accredited on arrival in Nigeria by this ministry
to carry out her assignment as the Magazine’s Correspondent on July 2002
for a period of one year.”
It said the accreditation was subject to renewal on expiration based on
usual conditions which include, among other things, the possession of a
valid Visa to remain and work in Nigeria. The Ministry added that it also
requested the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) to regularize the Visa
and issue her with a combined Expatriate Resident Permit and Alien Card (CERPAC)
for the period of validity of her accreditation.
The statement alleged that even when accreditation expired on July 21,
2003 neither Silvia nor he medium made any attempt to renew her
accreditation, rather she “surreptitiously proceeded to obtain a Nigerian
Tourist Visa which is neither subject to regularization (STR) nor
appropriate for her work in Nigeria”.
The Ministry statement said further that when Ms. Sansoni eventually
applied for renewal of her accreditation, it was carefully evaluated and
subsequently denied. It said the decision to deny the application was
communicated to her employers vide a letter dated January12, 2004.
In October, CNN’s West African correspondent Jeff Koinange and his
cameraman Simon Munene were detained for several hours at the Lagos
Airport after they arrived to cover the All African Games (COJA 2003) that
was held in Abuja. Customs officials told them that they would be deported
following orders from above. Embarrassed by the incident, the government
finally intervened to prevent the journalists from being expelled.
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