(MRA/IFEX) – Please note, in the previous version of this alert, Atiku Abubakar was misidentified as the vice-president of the Nigerian Guild of Editors when he is, in fact, the vice-president of the country. The IFEX Clearing House apologizes for the error. The corrected version of the alert follows: On 2 November 2006, the Nigerian […]
(MRA/IFEX) – Please note, in the previous version of this alert, Atiku Abubakar was misidentified as the vice-president of the Nigerian Guild of Editors when he is, in fact, the vice-president of the country. The IFEX Clearing House apologizes for the error.
The corrected version of the alert follows:
On 2 November 2006, the Nigerian government filed criminal charges at the Federal High Court in Abuja against Mr. Shehu Garba, a former president of the Nigerian Guild of Editors and currently media consultant to the country’s vice president, Atiku Abubakar, accusing him of violating the Official Secrets Act.
Garba is being charged with illegally obtaining, reproducing, and retaining documents relating to the death in a bomb blast in 1997 of Bagauda Kaltho, then Kaduna State correspondent for “The New”‘ magazine.
The three-count charge against Garba alleged that:
– between January 2001 and September 2006 he obtained classified matter, namely the intelligence summary on the suspected involvement of Kaltho in the Kaduna Durbar Hotel bombing, and thereby committed an offence under section 1(1)(b) of the Official Secrets Acts;
– during the same period, he reproduced the same classified matter in violation of the same section the Official Secrets Act; and
– during the same period, he retained the classified matter in violation of the same provisions of the Act.
His trial could not proceed on 2 November as the trial judge, Justice Binta Murtala Nyanko, was attending a conference. The trial has been rescheduled for 14 December.
Kaltho was killed in mysterious circumstances in 1997 and subsequently accused by security agents of planting the bomb that killed him at the Durbar Hotel in Kaduna, northern Nigeria. The allegations at that time provoked a public outcry from his employers and human rights organizations in the country who alleged that he was killed by the repressive government of the late dictator, General Sani Abacha. Garba was president of the Nigerian Guild of Editors at the time of Kaltho’s death.
Garba has had a running battle with security and intelligence agents over the last several months following a series of press statements he issued along with dozens of supporting documents, including bank cheques, which he released to the media alleging corrupt practices against Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, and several presidential aides. His house and offices have been subjected to raids and searches by security agents while he has been arrested and detained on a number of occasions.
He has also previously been charged with obtaining confidential documents without government authorisation. However, the previous charges against him did not specify what classified document he obtained.
His lead counsel, Mr Adeniyi Akintola, filed a notice of preliminary objection to the earlier charge on the grounds that it did not disclose the particulars of the offence for which he was charged.
