Free press in Nigeria continues to be relentlessly attacked while journalism as a practice remains an endangered profession despite constitutional provision for the media to hold the government accountable.
Programme Director of Premium Times Investigative Journalism Centre, (PTCIJ) Ms Oluwatosin Alagbe stated this in STATE OF PRESS FREEDOM REPORT: Trends and Reflections launched on Thursday.
The new report based on an analysis of data from The Press Attack Tracker and contributions by top journalists and media scholars provides insights on the level of press freedom and several related issues about the media in the country.
In the past five years, over three hundred cases of different forms of attacks have been recorded by the Press Attack Tracker, a civic technology tool, designed to track and report attacks against the press.
The analysis of data in The Press Attack Tracker section of the report from 2018 – 2020 spotlights trends, perpetrators of attacks, most prevalent types of attacks and regions with the highest prevalence of abuse of journalists.
The North Central Region of the country topped in the number of attackers with 47 cases, South West 36, South South 32, South East 17, NorthWest 15 and North East 13.
In terms of types and number of attacks, 72 cases of physical attacks were recorded, 38 arrests, 13 equipment/search/seizure, 12 threats, 12 denial of access and seven cases of harassments.
Alagbe noted that the recent #EndSARS protests in the country is an indication of how state actors “ suffocate the press with impunity even while journalists are assaulted and media organisations have been slammed with crippling fines for the duty of merely covering the protests.”
“Journalists and activists have been spied on, threatened, arbitrarily arrested, forcedly kidnapped and unlawfully detained. Worsening these threats was the introduction of two prohibitive legislative proposals – the Hate Speech and the Social Media Bills, which until recently were under consideration in the National Assembly,” she stated.
Alagbe said a free press is vital for every democracy because a free press plays a critical role in informing people about their rights, holding governments accountable and allows for varying conversations about issues of public interest.
