JOURNALISM IN NIGERIA
Oct 7th, 2008 by admin
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The recent closure of Channels Television in Nigeria and the arrest of some of its staff met with utmost condemnation by the general public. The reason given was the alleged false report on the plan by President Yar Adua to resign. The act itself takes Nigeria back to its Military days when journalists did not enjoy press freedom, many had to seek sojourn abroad. This again, has been replayed in the number of foreign journalists that have been arrested in recent times in the Niger Delta. These foreign journalists are usually arrested with their interpreters. Such that, it is becoming embarrassing to the country. The big question recently asked by Noble laureate Wole Soyinka at a recent book presentation to a fellow journalist Gerd Meuer, you have been a journalist I don’t know for how many journals in Nigeria and everywhere else, and I think the problem also is the plight of your fellow journalists everywhere. Now, in this country, especially in the oil-producing area, you know, we have had the phenomenon of kidnapping for ransom and other political reasons, and I wonder if you have taken a position about the fact that it turns out that some of the kidnappers are the Nigerian military, because all you read these days have been the Nigerian Military kidnapping journalists, your fellow journalists, and as a seasoned journalist, I wonder whether you have done anything at all on behalf of your kidnapped colleagues. It is becoming embarrassing for us, because while we are trying to persuade the kidnappers,
the militants etc., not to resort to that kind of activity for their liberation course, and as their private jobs. And then we find that the Nigerian Army appears to be at the top of the kidnappers, and to us it is intensely embarrassing. So we just want to know what you have been doing about this issue of kidnapping journalists like yourself.