Buhari Claimed He’d Protected Journalists’ Rights. He Lied — Over 30 Victimised Under Him

Yesterday, Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari claimed he’d been protecting the rights of journalists in the last eight years of his leadership, but he lied, WikkiTimes can report.

The president who spoke on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day yesterday, said journalists in the country had enjoyed “unfettered” freedom under him.

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“We’ve kept the faith. We’ve ensured that Nigerian journalists have had unfettered freedom to practice their art, and on this occasion of World Press Freedom Day, we recommit to that resolution, even as we wind down in office,” he said.

THE PRESIDENT LIED

The president’s claim contradicts facts, WikkiTimes’ findings revealed. In 2015, the president vowed to protect press freedom. He will leave office in a few days with anti-press freedom records.

A 2021 Press Freedom Report jointly released by Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) and the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), revealed that seven journalists were killed under Buhari’s watch. It added that apart from the unresolved killings, the Buhari government recorded 300 violations, affecting about 500 journalists, media workers, and media houses in the country. See the report here.

In academic research carried out by lecturers at the University of Port Harcourt, the Buhari government was horribly portrayed in relation to press freedom. The study which covers issues between 2015 and 2017, was carried out to fact-check the claim no journalist had been imprisoned under Buhari’s rule.

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“Some 38 journalists were recorded to have either been brutalized, arrested and charged to court because their reporting clashed with the interests of government officials or security forces who must take command from President Buhari,” the researchers, revealed.

The repressive actions were coded as thus: Arrested (A), Brutalized/Beaten (B), Arrested and charged to court (AC), and Killed (K).

Their details were presented below:

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OLD GENERAL IN NON-MILITARY REGALIA

During Buhari’s military rule, he, alongside his Supreme Military Council (SMC) promulgated Decree No. 4 to r5epress press freedom. The decree hindered journalists from reporting the military government in a bad light. Defaulters were, however, imprisoned.

Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor of The Guardian were victims of the draconian decree. They spent eight months in prison for publishing the list of ambassadorial appointments before its official release date by the Buhari government. Stunningly, Thompson pardoned Buhari when the latter was campaigning to lead the country in 2015.

Following human rights abuse and an unending clampdown on press freedom under Buhari’s democratic administration, the Punch newspaper says it would henceforth identify the president as Major General (Rtd).

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Ray Ekpu, a veteran journalist who suffered from Buhari’s anti-press atmosphere during the military era, said the president has not changed.

Ekpu who is a former Editor-In-Chief of Newswatch Magazine, recalled an interview his team had with Buhari in 1984 when the latter vowed to restrain press freedom.

He said: What is happening is not strange because President Buhari is not a democrat even though he claims that he is a born-again democrat. I was one of three persons – the others were Dele Giwa and Yakubu Mohammed – who interviewed Major General Muhammadu Buhari on February 6, 1984, and we were shocked when the man said, ‘I will tamper with press freedom. I will tamper with press freedom’.

“When we came out of the interview from Dodan Barracks, Dele Giwa said, ‘We are all in trouble’. I said, ‘Yes, we are all in trouble with this man’. And he (Buhari) has not changed. He has not changed. He now has a Minister of Information (and Culture, Lai Mohammed), who is vigorously anti-press; he wants Nigeria to be like China. If it is a question of making money like China, let him show the way but if it is a question of going to borrow money from China, we are not ready.

“There is nothing in terms of freedom of democracy that we can borrow from China because we’ve had our China here – many years of military rule, that was China and we fought the military to a standstill.

“I don’t know whether they know the history of the press council. General Yakubu Gowon (retd.) tried it, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo tried it, we blocked it, General Ibrahim Babangida (retd.) tried it, the first one we shut it down, the second one, they reviewed it, we were managing it, we made some input and we said, ‘Okay, it was alright’.

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“Later, some people said to General Abdulsalami Abubakar (retd.): ‘Let’s revive this thing’ and General Abubakar said we should look at it. The Nigerian Press Organisation sat down and we had a meeting. We had several meetings of the NPO and we came up with our own position which was acceptable to the generality of the people in the media and the civil society groups. “The mischievous people within the government went and tinkered with it and introduced punitive measures but we kicked and rejected it. We went to court. The NPO led by Ismaila Isa, Sam Amuka, Ray Ekpu, Nduka Obaigbena, we brought in a few other people and went to court; we took the Federal Government and the Federal Ministry of Information to court and won. The case is at the Supreme Court now and we are waiting for the last ruling.

“There is a long struggle to the issue of press freedom. I won’t kid myself and say that the struggle for press freedom is over. These people in the National Assembly, these people in the Buhari government were never part of the struggle, so, they don’t know that we fought every inch of the way to gain freedom for Nigerians and freedom for the press. Journalists must be ready for the fight. It hasn’t ended, there are very mischievous people, there are anti-democratic people in government.”

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