(MRA/IFEX) – On 20 January 2005, four State Security Services (SSS) agents raided newsstands in southeastern Enugu state. The security agents arrested the state chairman of the Newspapers Vendors’ Association of Nigeria, Clement Egbuche, and two newspaper vendors, identified as Emeji and Chidinma. The three were arrested for selling copies of the tabloid newspaper “Eastern […]
(MRA/IFEX) – On 20 January 2005, four State Security Services (SSS) agents raided newsstands in southeastern Enugu state. The security agents arrested the state chairman of the Newspapers Vendors’ Association of Nigeria, Clement Egbuche, and two newspaper vendors, identified as Emeji and Chidinma. The three were arrested for selling copies of the tabloid newspaper “Eastern Pilot”, which carried reports of the “emergence of a new Biafra nation”.
Reports said the SSS officers arrived at the vendors’ offices at approximately 10:00 a.m. (local time) and began ransacking the place. They seized copies of the newspaper from Emeji and asked to know its source. Emeji took them to see Chidinma, a female vendor. Both Emeji and Chidinma were then arrested. The security men forced the two vendors to take them to Egbuche’s office, alleged to be the distributor of the newspaper.
At the association’s office, Egbuche was arrested and handcuffed. After the security agents finished searching his office, they took him along with the two vendors to the SSS headquarters in Enugu, where the three were interrogated and later released.
Narrating his experience after his release, Egbuche said vendors had not been told that it is an offence to sell any newspaper carrying a story about the Movement for the Advancement of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB). He added that their business was to “sell news products to make ends meet.” He alleged that one of the SSS officers had slapped one of his sales women before he was arrested.
An SSS official reportedly confirmed the incident, saying the agency considered “Eastern Pilot” newspaper to be subversive. He justified the action saying, “because of the purported declaration of the independence of Biafra, on 20 January 2005, our men went to the field on routine checks. There, they intercepted this publication, which we consider very subversive, and demanded to know how it came about. In the process, we arrested three of the vendors. They were brought here and were released later, after interrogation.”
