NIGERIA MEDIA MONITOR
#03-39 MONDAY 5TH OCTOBER, 1998
* JOURNALISTS ARRESTED, RELEASED
* KALTHO: EDITOR REPLIES POLICE CHIEF
* HUMAN RIGHT COMMISSION SEEKS ABROGATION OF DECREE TWO\
* HOW THE NEWS MAGAZINE SURVIVED ABACHA
THREE JOURNALISTS ARRESTED
Three journalists, Durosinmi Meseko, Deputy News Editor, Benneth Oghifo, Property Correspondent and Alex Ugwuka Production Assistant, of the ThisDay Newspaper were arrested 23 September by men of a Special Anti-Robbery Squad at a restaurant in Ikeja (near ThisDay office premises) in Lagos.
The journalists, along with others at a restaurants, were bundled into waiting vehicles and taken to the Army Operational base in Government Reservation Area, Ikeja even after proper identification by the journalists.
They were released on 24 September. A police officer apologised to the journalists after their release. He explained that the police acted on a tip-off that the restaurant was being patronised by robbers.
Elsewhere, Gabriel Orok, the crime reporter, for PM News newspaper was arrested 26 September, 1998 by a team of policemen from Ikotun police post along with two security operatives from special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Ikeja. He was taken to Area F, Lagos state police command, Ikeja where he was interrogated on a story published in the PM News on Friday 25 September 1998 captioned "Ethnics Tension in the Police" which contained reactions by the police officers on a recent promotion, dismissal and retirement in the police force.
The State Security Service (SSS) operatives interrogating Orok claimed that the story was untrue and that no police officer made any comment on the issue. Orok maintained that he did speak with some police officers and, in particular, with the Lagos state police commissioner Alhaji Abubakar Tsav.
The interrogators took the journalist before Alhaji Tsav who denied ever speaking with Orok. However, Orok played the recorded interview he had with Tsav on the issue. Embarrassed and helpless, the police boss ordered the release of the journalist on 28 September.
KALTHO: THE NEWS EDITOR REPLIES POLICE CHIEF
In an interview published in last week’s edition of the Media Monitor, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Zakari Biu made reference to Babafemi Ojudu, Managing Editor of The News & TEMPO magazines. Now, Ojudu says Mr. Biu told blatant lies.
His reaction:
It was interesting reading the interview with Assistant Police Commissioner Hassan Zakari Biu. I do not grudge him his right as a Nigerian to elaborate on his story on the Bagauda Kaltho mystery. What I am opposed to is selling a bunch of lies as truth.
I am therefore writing this short note to correct some impressions created in the interview.
First is the claim that I was arrested by the State Security Services (SSS) at Seme border and that I was coming with fake papers. It was the agents of SSS who on 17 November arrest me. I was first taken to their office in Badagry from where I was moved to the Lagos state headquarters at Shangisha. >From Shangisa at about 2.00 a.m on the morning of 18th November I was transferred to the national headquarters annex on 15 Awolowo road, Ikoyi.
Zakari Biu characteristically told a blatant lie when he said I came with fake papers. The only travelling document found on me on my arrest was my legal travelling passport issued by the immigration department and bearing my name and my photograph. This document was there and then seized from me and it is still being held by the SSS up to this day.
As regards my giving Zakari Biu a lead on Kaltho, this also is falsehood. Biu and his men had been in touch with the Kaltho family since December 1997. Kaltho’s wife has made a public statement to corroborate this. Biu interrogated me in April, 1998 and at no time during the course of the interrogation did he raise questions on Kaltho being involved in bomb throwing. All he sought to know from me were the steps we took to locate him when we discovered he was missing.
When he asked me what we did after we learnt that he was missing, I told him we instructed our Bureau Chief in Kaduna to report the case to the police, check all the security posts as well as the mortuaries. It was after we have done this that we started running adverts in the papers. I believe this is a reasonable initial step to take when somebody is missing. Biu has consistently fed the public with lies on this matter as his press conference and this interview reveal.
I challenge him to make my signed statement available to you for publication as advert in your I will be willing to pick up the bill if only to show how dishonest Biu is with facts.
RIGHTS COMMISSION SEEKS ABROGATION OF DECREE 2
Government has been urged by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to abrogate Decree 2 which empowers the Inspector-General of Police to detain any person considered to be a security risk indefinitely without trial.
The executive secretary of the commission. Dr. Mohammed Tabi’u made the call at a News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) forum in Abuja, saying an immediate repeal of the decree was imperative because its provisions were in conflict with the position of the this country’s constitution on the issue of detention without trial.
According to him, while the decree allows for the detention of anybody considered a security risk for three months, which could be extended several times, the constitution explicitly specifies that any suspect arrested must be charged to court within a reasonable period of time.
"The position of the commission is that the exclusion of judicial review in the decree means that there is no control of any kind over the use of that decree, whether abused or not," he stated.
"The view of the commission," he said, "is that the decree should either be abrogated or reviewed or be made available for judicial review, but we would prefer its outright repeal."
Tabi’u said the commission has also embarked on a sensitisation programme on human rights value for Nigeria police force personnel.
According to him, the top echelon of the force was being educated to understand that the fundamental rights of citizens did not stand in the way of their duty of maintaining law and order.
The exercise, he said, started in June this year with a workshop on the "duties and responsibility of the police vis-a-vis the rights and responsibilities of the citizens," which drew participants from the police force, non-governmental organisations and the public.
He said human rights were being taught at police schools and colleges, with a view to enlighten the force on the democratic way of life, especially as the nation moves back to civil rule next year.
Tabi’u added that particular attention was being paid to the basic rights, especially the right of expression and the right of assembly.
He said the top echelon of the force was being enlightened on the psychological trauma detainees suffered when they were not charged before a court of law after a very long time, saying that bails and temporary releases should be emphasised.
The commission, Tabi’u said, was still waiting for vital information to enable it decide on a course of action in the case of former The News reporter, the late Bagauda Kaltho, said to have died in a bomb blast at Durbar Hotel in Kaduna in 1996.
According to him, the commission received a report on the disappearance of Kaltho from his employers about a year ago.
However, since the report was lodged, no further information was received on the case in spite of numerous appeals made by the commission, he added.
The commission has received 300 complaints since its inception in 1995, the executive secretary added, saying about half of the complaints, mostly on detention without trial and high handedness by security agents, had been disposed of while the rest were being "adequately handled".
FEATURE
WHY WE RESISTED ABACHA
By Bayo Onanuga
The News magazine was born on 8 February 1993. Its birth coincided with an interesting time in the chequered life of our country. Four months earlier, presidential primary elections were annulled. Four months after, the nation was expected to go to the polls, to elect a civilian President in the June 12 presidential election. The election was to have marked the end of yet another military rule, 10 years after a civilian government was sacked by tanks and bullets.
Although the election took place, the military masters annulled it so whimsically and provocatively, the civil society rose in anger. The military lords responded with brutal force, killing no fewer than 250 Nigerians in Lagos area alone. A poll that ought to mark a democratic renaissance for our nation ended up as a well-contrived grand tragedy, a big nightmare and destroyer of all the bonds of nationhood.
In 1993, even before the June 12 poll, there was so much doubt about the sincerity of the military in handing over power to the civilians. There was so much uncertainty about the future of our economy and our nation.
TheNews magazine thus had its role well cut out for it as its made appearance. It made no equivocation about its mission as announced in the maiden issue dated 15, February, 1993:
"The News, is an independent medium, dedicated to the development of man and society through balanced reporting and analysis of people, places and events... We shall be dedicated to the promotion of the principles of civilized nationalism, democracy, political and economic pluralism, liberty and the equality of the various ethnic groups of the Nigerian Federation".
"But the independence of The News is no excuse for opportunism and spineless neutrality in the major issues that affect the well-being of the Nigerian people. We shall be partisanly neutral on the side of truth, justice and good government." With this manifesto, it was clear that The News was not going to quiver before the military. It was not going to collaborate. It was going to be resolutely anti-establishment.
The News was barely three months old when its office was shut down but by central government without any reason. Several weeks after, it was proscribed out of existence and its editors declared wanted. What was the offence of this new magazine? It had exposed the cunning tactics of the Babangida regime to stay-put in power; it had exposed the conspiracy within the military oligarchy to abort democracy. It saw the annulment coming and said so in its edition titled "Conspiracy: Desperate Attempt to Abort Democracy" (The News, 28 June, 1993. This was published after the security agents had occupied the office).
The proscription of The News led to the birth of TEMPO, our own child of circumstance. As you are also aware, the poll annulment led to the imposition of the contraption called the Interim National Government and the birth, four months after, of the "child of necessity" government led by the dark-goggled General Sani Abacha. General Abacha, after much pressure, and about two years after he seized power, announced another transition programme that would terminate in 1998.
Having witnessing the political transition that was prosecuted under General Ibrahim Babangida, the longest transition ever, Nigerians were never in doubt that our nation was embarking on another fruitless and endless journey to democracy. As a true mirror of public opinion, these were the views that we reflected in all our titles, The News and TEMPO, the PM News and the AM News all through 1994 till 1998 when General Sani Abacha ended the most manipulated, the most fraudulent transition programme in Nigeria’s history with his own eternal transition of 8 June, 1998.
When General Abacha seized power in November 1993, the impression the junta gave to Nigerians was that its stay in power would be the shortest ever in Nigeria’s history. Several weeks after the regime began consolidating its hold on power, it became crystal clear that the regime planned to dig in and hang onto power as long as Nigerians and God allowed.
Our investigations had shown that he was a man of immense riches who had amassed huge fortunes by grossly abusing his powerful positions as a member of the ruling military elite since 1984. Then there was the uproar over the crude oil contracts given by the regime to new players, and as it turned out the business partners of General Sani Abacha. There was the Abiola June 12 challenge, along with the credibility crisis that the regime inherited from the Babangida era.
The Abacha junta responded to all the challenges in various ways. To ensure that nosey reporters were scared from probing the General’s stupendous wealth, the regime brought back several draconian decrees, including Decree 2 and indeed began in 1994 with a raid of Academy Press to seize 50,000 copies of TELL magazine.
To counter the Abiola challenge, the junta hurriedly convened the Constitutional Conference, despite massive boycotts in southern Nigeria and attempted to sell the dummy that the confab would resolve Nigeria’s political crisis, including, June 12. In addition, the regime incarcerated many of its political opponents, including the winner of the June 12 election. Many critics who escaped the regime’s net ran into exile. Some of those who stayed were assassinated, most gruesomely.
Finding an answer to the credibility crisis appeared, however, the most daunting task for the regime. It never got an answer as the regime’s execution of its own transition programme also threw up a lot of doubts about sincerity.
The first indication of the regime’s insincerity came in December 1994, after a motion asking the military to hand over in January 1996 was passed by the Constitutional Conference, which the junta had promised a lot of latitude, including determining an exit date for the junta. (TheNews, 19 December 1994).
That the regime was angry was an understatement. It interpreted the motion as treason. In January, the motion was not only annulled, the mover, General Shehu Musa, Yar’Adua was arrested for an alleged involvement in a phantom coup plot. General Olusegun Obasanjo was equally arrested and so were many young officers in the army, including innocent journalists and human rights activists.
Except for journalists who wear dark goggles or journalists made blind by the mouth watering patronage they get from Aso Rock or the security network, it was becoming clear that the Abacha regime was not planning to leave power so quickly and rather than being Nigeria’s shortest regime, the Abacha regime was sending abroad signals that it was going to hold sway in Nigeria many winters to come.
TheNews saw this clearly in its 23 January 1995 edition, even before Yar’Adua arrest. Entitled: "Abacha Trapped: Stay Put Plan in Crisis", the story tells about the entrapment of the Army General who had told the confab to set a department date for him and who having been given a January 1996 deadline, deployed all the crude tactics in the books to change the deadline to his own time.
Abacha had is way of course. The confab not only reversed itself; Abacha announced in October a new exit date as October 1998. In July, The News had predicted that the junta was actually planning to leave power in 1999 and that the former Secretary to the Government was busy designing the "sit-tight plan". There was no YEAA at that time, nor was there any recognisable group campaigning for the eternal rule of Sani Abacha, although, Abubakar Saleh, the Government Secretary, dropped out of sight a year after, not the sit-tight plot.
In March 1996, The News alerted Nigerians about the plan of General Abacha to float a political party that he would control from Aso Rock. The News at the time must have sounded incredible, but events proved us right. Abacha actually formed five political parties, controlled and funded by him to further his self-perpetuation project. In the council polls of the year, victory was not determined by voters, but by Aso Rock. The election ended up a massive selection.
If people were still harbouring doubts that the self-perpetuation programme was real, Samuel Ikoku, a member of the Transition Implementation Committee revealed in an interview published by TEMPO on 11 July 1996 that the transition programme would be tinkered with, his words: "I cannot swear whether it will run its full course."
Onanuga, Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief, The News/TEMPO, PM News, delivered this piece at a recent media forum in Lagos.
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