Attacks on Journalists Rising Ahead of Nigeria's Upcoming Elections
Press freedom in Nigeria is in trouble. 53 public and privately-owned radio stations have been suspended since the beginning of 2022, and arrests and attacks on journalists have been on the rise. The nation has fallen nine places on Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index since 2021, ranking it at 129th out of 180 countries.
The general elections scheduled for 2023 have also seen some journalists outright harassed by the military. Adesola Ikulajolu, a Nigerian journalist and fact-checker, reported that Department of State Security (DSS) officers “collected my phones and deleted some of the pictures [I had] already taken. They were ready to bundle me into their van if I didn't cooperate with them. [Eventually] they gave me back my phone and told me to leave the premises immediately.” Ikulajolu was approached by the officers while taking photos of voters at a polling unit for a report on the upcoming gubernatorial elections.
These attacks have been steadily rising since 2019, according to the International Journalists’ Network (IJN). However, as the elections loom closer, journalists seem like easy targets, according to Kareem Azeez, an election observer for the Nigerian Centre of Journalism Innovation & Development (CJID). “Anything is possible,” Azeez says, “but safety first should be the watchword of any journalist covering the election.”
“Protection of journalists is something that should be taken seriously. It should start with the individual. They need to do security checks to ensure they are not exposing themselves to unnecessary dangers,” says Lekan Otufodunrin, the executive director of the Media Career Development Network in Nigeria. Otufodunrin also said journalists need to be aware of alternative ways to protect their information if their process is interfered with. “When journalists are being attacked, information from that area is seized and that's the painful thing about Nigeria. Journalists are not given maximum respect. Many of the police officers don't even know what the law says.”
Nigeria’s democracy is young: the military government handed over its power to an elected civilian body in 1999. But the challenges Nigeria’s journalists face are atypical for a democracy. The neighboring democracy of Guinea was established in 2010, and Guinea ranks more than 40 places higher than Nigeria on the RSF Press Freedom Index.
These attacks seem to be trending upward, and more and more people are calling for answers.
“The media needs to ask a lot of questions about why [attacks on journalists are] happening in a democracy,” Lanre Arogundade, the executive director of IPC, told the Reuters Insitute. “It is a fact that press freedom is not properly guaranteed in this country.”
Journalists inside of Nigeria are still working warily to supply information accurately to their communities, but they cannot do it without attention called to the brutalities journalists are facing in trying to do so.
