Media Rights Agenda (MRA), a collective, has urged the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr. Kayode Egbetokun, to halt the escalating practice wherein influential public figures and authorities exploit the police to suppress and penalize journalists.
In a recent press statement, MRA’s Deputy Executive Director, Mr. Ayode Longe, emphasized the need to address this issue.
He pointed out that certain misconducting public officials resort to employing the police as a tool to intimidate journalists, thus safeguarding themselves from journalistic scrutiny.
“Section 22 of the Constitution imposes a duty on the media and also gives it the freedom to uphold the responsibility and accountability of the government to the people, and it is certainly not the function of the police to prevent the media from performing this duty or exercising this freedom.
“The recurrent pattern of the police being used to impede the media’s performance of a constitutionally mandated function constitutes an egregious abuse of Police powers,” he said.
Longe said it was unfortunate that “this abuse of the powers of the police is sometimes done in the name of the IGP’s Monitoring Unit of the Nigeria Police Force, thereby bringing the highest office in the Nigerian Police into disrepute.”
He said in the latest of such abuses of police powers, the IGP’s Monitoring Unit in Abuja, in a letter signed by DCP A. A. Elleman, Head of the Unit, invited three journalists, Mr. Petrus Obi of Everyday NewsNgr, Mr. Ignatius Okpara of the African Examiner, and Mr. Clinton Umeh of Journalists 101, who are all based in Enugu, to report in Abuja yesterday, to answer to allegations of “criminal conspiracy, cyberstalking, injurious falsehood, conduct likely to cause breach of public peace, and criminal defamation with intent to incite levelled against them by Dr. Monday Nwite Igwe, the medical director of the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital in Enugu.”
Longe stated that this summons stemmed from news articles and reports published by journalists concerning events at the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital in Enugu. These reports encompassed topics such as the shutdown of the hospital’s School of Post Basic Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing in Enugu, both of which fall under Igwe’s supervisory domain.
He argued that comprehending how journalistic coverage of a public institution within Enugu could escalate into a situation where journalists are being summoned to Abuja, and this case has taken precedence for the IGP’s Monitoring Unit, is a complex matter. This scenario unfolds in a nation grappling with myriad violent crimes and other grave offenses.
MRA called upon the Inspector-General of Police, the Police Service Commission, the National Human Rights Commission, and the National Assembly to employ their oversight roles. They should initiate an inquiry into this recurrent abuse of police authority aimed at stifling and penalizing journalists and media entities as they carry out their constitutionally designated responsibilities.
