Media Rights Agenda (MRA)

On 3 July 2013, a police officer manning the gate of the government house in Makurdi publicly flogged Mr. Chris Atsaka – the chairman of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Benue State Council – with a horsewhip.

On 24 June, 2013, the Nigerian government re-filed criminal charges of alleged forgery against two journalists, Mr. Tony Amokeodo, the group news editor and Mr. Chibuzo Ukaibe, a political correspondent with Leadership newspapers.

Emmanuel Unah, a reporter for the CrosssRiver Watch, an online news platform, was arrested over an article about the Deputy Governor of Cross River State, Nigeria. Unah was not the author of the article, but police seized his laptop and detained him overnight.

IFEX members sent a joint letter to President Museveni calling for an end to impunity in cases of police violence against the media, after a violent crackdown on a demonstration in May over media closures.

Nigeria’s State Security Service detained Segun Olatunji, a correspondent for The Punch newspaper. Olantunji was interrogated over a story in which two members of Nigeria’s ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party made allegations that ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo maintains a killer squad.

Samson Folarin, a reporter for The Punch newspaper, was assaulted and detained by police officers after trying to photograph a brawl between a police officer and a commercial tricycle operator. Police also seized Folarin’s reporting equipment.

The National Film and Video Censors Board has stated that “Fuelling Poverty” is not permitted to be distributed, aired or exhibited, due to contents that are “…likely to undermine national security.”

A cameraman and several photojournalists were attacked as they tried to photograph suspects in a case concerning the embezzlement of a police pension fund.