Nigeria: Police arrest six journalists

13 Oct 2011

Six journalists and one other staff have been arrested following raids on a newspaper office in Nigeria. Detectives stormed the Lagos-based premises of independent daily newspaper The Nation on Tuesday, arresting seven. The arrests are believed to be linked to the publication of a private letter on 4 October from former head of state Olusegun Obasanjo to President Goodluck Jonathan, suggesting Jonathan replace CEOs of several government agencies. Obasanjo accused the newspaper of publishing the letter with a forgery of his signature. The journalists are expected to appear in court tomorrow.

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  1. Adewale Maja-Pearce

    October 16, 2011 at 21:56

    Yes, this is a troubling development but I think The Nation erred. The newspaper published the letter in full – on the front page! – in order to prove the accuracy of their initial report in which they quoted from said letter. Some people think this was unnecesserarily provocative and that they should have allowed the government to go to court One should also be aware of the political undertones. The publisher, Bola Tinubu, was the former governor of Lagos State, is the ‘Godfather’ of the present one (the hard-working Babatunde Raji Fashola) and the effective leader of the opposition to the ruling party. The author of this privare letter (which is not in any case covered by the newly enacted Freedom of Information Bill, according to the lawyers) was a former president (1999-2007) from the same ruling party which installed the incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan, in the 2007 ‘do or die’ (his words) elections. As it happens, Tinubu is now facing corruption charges. The arrests of the journalists, most of whom have now been released, was no doubt foolish but it’s disheartening that so much of the current print media is hostage to the in-fighting of the cabal that has ruined this country but who then use the newspapaers they subsidise to publicise them and win sympathy. Publishing such a letter on the front page doesn’t seem to me to be serious journalism. The immediate problem in Nigeria now is the removal of the so-called petrol subsidy because we import refined because our own refineries don’t work because the contracts awarded for them were stolen at source to fund, amongst other things, newspapers. This will double the cost of fuel at the pump and therefore everything else. But Nigeria is a long story…

    Adewale Maja-Pearce

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