The Media Rights Agenda (MRA), a prominent group advocating for media freedom, has called upon the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr. Kayode Egbetokun, to put an end to the alarming trend of public officials and influential individuals exploiting the police to suppress and penalize journalists.
In a press release issued yesterday, Mr. Ayode Longe, Deputy Executive Director of MRA, highlighted the concern that certain public figures resort to using the police as a tool of intimidation, shielding themselves from journalistic scrutiny….CONTINUE READING
Longe emphasized that Section 22 of the Constitution mandates the media with the responsibility to uphold government accountability to the people, while also ensuring media freedom.
He stressed that it is not within the police’s purview to obstruct the media from fulfilling this constitutionally mandated duty or from exercising their freedom.
“The recurring pattern of leveraging the police to obstruct the media’s fulfillment of its constitutionally mandated duty represents a severe misuse of police authority,” Longe remarked.
He expressed disappointment in instances where “such misuse of police authority is sometimes executed under the guise of the IGP’s Monitoring Unit of the Nigeria Police Force,” which consequently tarnishes the reputation of the highest office within the Nigerian Police.
Longe further pointed out that in the latest incident of this misuse of police authority, the IGP’s Monitoring Unit in Abuja, via a letter signed by DCP A. A. Elleman, the Unit’s Head, summoned three journalists – Mr. Petrus Obi of Everyday NewsNgr, Mr.
Ignatius Okpara of the African Examiner, and Mr. Clinton Umeh of Journalists 101, all based in Enugu – to appear in Abuja yesterday. The journalists were called upon to address allegations of “criminal conspiracy, cyberstalking, injurious falsehood, conduct likely to cause a breach of public peace, and criminal defamation with intent to incite.
These allegations were lodged against them by Dr. Monday Nwite Igwe, the medical director of the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital in Enugu.
