(CPJ/IFEX) – According to CPJ, State Security Service (SSS) agents have further intensified their efforts to prevent the publication of Independent Communications Network Limited (ICNL) titles “TheNews”, “TEMPO” and “P.M. News.” At 8:30 a.m. on 23 April 1998, a group of armed Federal Intelligence and Investigation Bureau (FIIB) military policemen completely sealed the 26 Ijaiye […]
(CPJ/IFEX) – According to CPJ, State Security Service (SSS) agents have
further intensified their efforts to prevent the publication of Independent
Communications Network Limited (ICNL) titles “TheNews”, “TEMPO” and “P.M.
News.” At 8:30 a.m. on 23 April 1998, a group of armed Federal Intelligence
and Investigation Bureau (FIIB) military policemen completely sealed the 26
Ijaiye Road offices of “TheNews”, “TEMPO” and “P.M. News.”
**Updates IFEX alerts of 23 and 21 April 1998**
In an earlier assault, seven State Security Service (SSS) agents raided the
premises of 24 hours Printing Press Limited, the printer of “TheNews”,
“Tempo”, and “P.M. News” at midnight on 22 April 1998. The SSS agents
arrested Finance and Administrative Manager Mr. Samson Adeyemi, Press
Manager Mr. W. Odofin, and security officer Mr. Hassan Turaki, and
transported them to the SSS Criminal Investigation offices at Alagbon Close
in Ikoyi, Lagos.
Later the same afternoon, SSS operatives returned to the printer to seize
and remove computer equipment from the premises. The agents confiscated 12
computers, 2 laser printers and 1 scanner, valued at Naira 1,000,000.
The SSS agents, who had arrived in a Peugeot 504 pick-up van with
registration
number AP 144 BDG, parked in front of the printing press at 9:00 p.m. on 21
April 1998 before entering the premises to commence their raid three hours
later.
Despite the raid on ICNL’s publications’ editorial offices, employees and
printer, 60,000 copies of “TEMPO” were on sale throughout Lagos on the
morning of 23 April 1998, and “The P.M. News” run, 50,000 copies, was on
sale on 22 April 1998.
Background Information
Since November 1997, “TheNews” group has been the worst hit of Nigeria’s
media houses in the renewed clamp down on the country’s independent media
houses. The editor of “TheNews”, Mr. Jenkins Alumona, the managing editor,
Mr. Babafemi Ojudu, the defense correspondent, Tokunbo Fakeye, the
administrative manager, Lateef Salau, two correspondents, Ben Adaji and
Henry Ugbolue, and Ladi Olorunyomi, the wife of “TheNews” former editor Dapo
Olorunyomi, were all arrested. Most wanted on the security list is the
company’s managing director, Bayo Onanuga who has fled the country. Ojudu,
Fakeye, and Salau are being detained incommunicado.
