Sowore: ‘Pen Will Always Triumph Over Dictatorship’ – NUJ Berates DSS For Tear-Gassing Reporters

The Nigeria Union of Journalists, FCT Council, has bemoaned what it described as “near-daily intimidation, harassment and detention” of journalists by Nigerian security agencies.

NUJ was reacting to Tuesday’s incident where reporters were reportedly tear-gassed by operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) in Abuja, the nation’s capital.

The reporters had gone to cover the #FreeSowore protest by activists demanding the release of Sahara Reporters publisher, Omoyele Sowore and Olawale Bakare, who have remained in custody of the DSS despite two court orders granting their release.

Speaking in a statement sent to THE WHISTLER on Tuesday, NUJ FCT Chairman, Comrade Emmanuel Ogbeche, said it was a dangerous time to be a journalist in Nigeria giving recent incarceration of journalists in the country.

Ogbeche said, “From reports and videos from our members who were on ground in the legitimate pursuit of the calling as journalists to cover a sit-out at the SSS Headquarters in Abuja that they were harassed, intimidated, tear-gassed and even arrested and detained speaks to a more sinister and perilous time to be a journalist in Nigeria,” Ogbeche said in the statement.

“Today, it has become a recurring decimal for journalists and media practitioners to be at the receiving end of security operatives in the pursuit of their constitutional guarantee to collate, disseminate and hold government and its officials accountable to the Nigerian people.

“What is even more troubling is that security operatives now believe that they have official backing of the State to so maliciously assault journalists.

“The NUJ FCT Council wishes to state that these abuses have dire repercussions on the Nigerian State as a fragile democracy and those who are responsible for this should be advised that they will be held accountable,” the statement further stated.

According to the NUJ Chairman, Richard Oludare of The Guardian Newspapers was badly beaten leaving scars on his body, while many TV cameras were damaged in the process.

He called on journalists not to shirk their responsibility to Nigerians right to information in this difficult times as history has shown that the pen will always triumph over dictatorial tendencies.