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1997: A Bad year For The Media, Says
MRA Annual Report
LAGOS, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1998:
No fever than 81 journalists and media workers suffered
various forms of human rights abuses in 1997 as security agencies of the
Nigerian Government waged a brutal war on the media, according to a report
by Media Rights Agenda (MRA).
The 36-page report entitled: “Sentenced to Silence: A
Report on the State of the Media in Nigeria in 1997” recorded 60
instances of attacks during the year, observing that more journalists were
arrested and detained or harassed and intimidated in other ways during the
year than any other year in the history of Nigerian journalism. Most of
the attacks occurred in the later half of the year.
The report noted that the most frequently applied mode of
attack on journalists was arrest and detention without trial and that this
was often motivated by stories written by journalists or comments and
remarks made by them on the state of the nation as well as government
policies and activities.
At the end of the year, 40 journalists had been detained
for between 24 hours and four months. Many of them remained in detention
at the close of the year. Journalists or other workers at TELL magazine
received threats to their lives during the year, while Reth Ateloye of
FAME magazine, who was arrested in place of the editor, died two week
after his release as a result of ailment which developed during his
five-day incarceration under inhuman conditions.
Lagos State, with its concentration of print and electronic
media took the unenviable position of the state that was home to the
highest number of violations. The state topped the list with 31
journalists detained. Abuja followed with 11, including that of Nduka
Obaigbena, Publishers of the Lagos-based This Day newspaper, who was
arrested at the NICON NOGA HILTON Hotel in Abuja on November 14.
Bayelsa and Edo States each recorded the detention of five
journalists. Rivers, Yobe, and Kaduna States had two each while Katsina,
Abia, Benue, Akwa Ibom, Imo, Enugu, Taraba and Kano witnessed the
detention of one journalist each. The environment for journalistic
practice in other states was less hostile.
The critical independent news media bore the burnt of the
attacks. Independent Communications Network Limited (ICNL), publishers of
The News, Tempo, and P.M. News suffered more attacks than any other
media organization. It experienced at least 16 instances of attacks
resulting in various terms of detention of editors and journalists working
with the different titles, as well as seizure of its publications.
Tell magazine, also under virtual perpetual siege for most
of the second half of year fared only slightly better. Most of the
attacks on the two media organizations were as a result of report on the
health situation of the Head of State, General Sani Abacha.
But no media organization was shut down or proscribed
during the year, although the threat of such an eventually remained high
throughout the year.
The four news magazines editors jailed for 15 years each in
1995 following their conviction after unfair secret trials by a military
tribunal in July of that year, remained in prison during the year with
little hope of reprieve from a vengeful government. Anxiety over their
welfare heightened at the end of the year following the death in prison of
former Chief of Staff Supreme Headquarters, Major-General Shehu Musa
Yar’Adua – one of the 43 person convicted by the special military tribunal
over the 1995 alleged coup plot.
For further information, please contact:
Tive Denedo
Director of Campaigns
Tel: 01-860456
E-mail: mra@rcl.nig.com
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