CPJ Urges Yar’Adua to Unravel Cases of Murdered Nigerian Journalists

The New York based freedom of expression group, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has written to President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua urging him to probe and unravel the deaths and disappearances of five Nigerian journalists since 1986.

The letter signed by CPJ’s Executive Director, Joel Simon, listed Godwin Agbroko, Omololu Falobi, Bagauda Kaltho, Chinedu Offoaro, and Dele Giwa as the cases it wants the President to get the police to unravel.

CPJ in the letter dated December 14, 2007, said it welcomed the President’s directives to Mr. Mike Okhiro, the Inspector General of Police to renew investigations into all unresolved criminal cases, particularly assassinations, and urging him to ensure the police pursue all leads in conducting thorough and transparent probes into these cases.

It drew the president’s attention to what it called “a pattern of impunity in the violent murders and disappearances of at least five Nigerian journalists since 1986”.

It thereafter listed the five journalists, their positions at the times and circumstances surrounding of their death or disappearances as follows.

“Award-winning journalist Godwin Agbroko, 53, editorial board chairman of the private daily ThisDay, was found shot dead on December 22, 2006, in his car with his valuables untouched while driving home from work in the commercial city of Lagos. Federal police officials characterized the murder as an assassination, but have not produced any suspects, according to local journalists. In January, CPJ wrote a letter to former President Olusegun Obasanjo urging a thorough and transparent probe into the murder, but did not receive a response.

“Omololu Falobi, 35, founder and director of media advocacy group Journalists Against AIDS, was gunned down on October 5, 2006, as he left his office in Lagos. Falobi, former features editor of the private daily The Punch was found at the wheel of his car with his valuables untouched, according to local journalists. No arrests have been made in the case, according to CPJ research.

“Bagauda Kaltho, 35, a senior correspondent of independent The News magazine based in Kaduna, went missing in 1996. In August 1998, the police’s Task Force on Terrorist Activities announced that Kaltho was the unidentified person killed at the scene of a January 1996 bomb blast at a local hotel, and alleged that Kaltho was the bomber, according to news reports. Kaltho’s colleagues vehemently denied the accusations. A few weeks before his disappearance, Kaltho said he received death threats in connection with stories critical of Nigeria’s military government, according to Usman Leman, the National Secretary of the Nigerian Union of Journalists.

“In May 1996, Chinedu Offoaro, a reporter of the private daily The Guardian in Lagos failed to return to the paper’s offices from a reporting assignment in the southern city of Owerri. His whereabouts remain unknown and he is presumed dead. State Security Service officials have refused to cooperate with the family, and have not answered questions about whether they detained Offoaro.

“On October 19, 1986, a parcel bomb bearing the government’s coat of arms killed Dele Giwa, founding editor of the Lagos-based weekly magazine Newswatch, at his home. A day before his death, the head of the State Security Service (SSS) under the military administration of former dictator Gen. Ibrahim Babangida had called Giwa’s wife for directions to his residence, according to CPJ research. Babaginda has refused to cooperate with any official inquiries. No one was ever prosecuted for the murder. Local media cited veteran Lagos-based lawyer Chief Gani Fawehinmi as saying … that Giwa was allegedly working on a drug-related investigative story involving Babaginda’s wife.”

CPJ reminded President Yar’Adua that since the inception of this administration on May 29, 2007, officials in his government have publicly stated his government’s commitment to ending the “impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators of Nigeria’s abuses”.

With lawmakers support for the passage of the Freedom of Information bill, CPJ asked him to extend his directive to include journalists, “to be sure that the federal police pursue all leads in conducting thorough and transparent probes into a pattern of unsolved criminal cases involving media workers, including these five journalists, in order to bring closure to their families and colleagues”.

The organization reminded him that if journalists cannot be assured of their safety, then self-censorship ensues adding that to create a secure environment for the press, the administration also needs to ensure that the media will not be persecuted unnecessarily.

Finally, CPJ called on the government to ensure that officials and security services are held to account for their actions in order to end a long-standing pattern of extrajudicial arrests of media workers the the various security agencies in the country.  

CPJ, an independent, nonprofit organization founded in 1981 and dedicated to defending and promoting press freedom worldwide defends the rights of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal.

To read the complete CPJ letter to President Yar’Adua, please log on to CPJ’s website at http://www.cpj.org/protests/07ltrs/africa/nigeria14dec07pl.html.

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