The International Press Centre has highlighted various attacks meted out to journalists in the course of carrying out their duties during the presidential election that held on Saturday February 25, 2023. Towards the safety of journalists IPC had established a Journalists’ Safety Alert Desk managed by the press freedom officer and assisted by field monitors across the geo-political zones of the country.

The IPC noted that it is regrettable that a number of journalists and other media professionals were subjected to harassment and intimidation during the Presidential and National Assembly elections of Saturday February 25, 2023. The situation report shows that not less than forty-one (41) incidents of attacks on journalists and other media professionals with fifty-seven (57) of them affected, varying from unlawful arrests/detention, physical assaults, threat to life, abduction, invasion, threat to sanction, and murder.

The summary of the attacks is as follows:

Attacked journalists 2023 election

CONCERNS AND DEMANDS
Ahead of the Governorship and State Assembly elections on March 11, 2023, IPC is again calling on the government and the law enforcement and security agencies to prioritise the sensitization and orientation of election-day personnel on the need to accord priority to the protection of journalists whose status is that of frontline workers on election day.
The political parties are also enjoined to call their supporters to order and desist from threatening and attacking journalists.

IPC also calls the law enforcement and security agencies and INEC need to investigate all the above documented cases with a view to prosecuting and meting of appropriate punishment to the alleged perpetrators.

The media being a major stakeholder in the elections should also be given top priority by INEC which should ensure that all accredited journalists are given other necessary toolkits such as car stickers, reflective jackets, etc, in addition to the accreditation tags.

Media owners also have a major role to play be ensuring they provide all the safety tools journalists will need on the field while building their capacity on how to avoid landmines on the field.

THE SPECIFIC CASE OF HARUNA MOHAMMED
IPC hereby calls for the immediate release of Haruna Salihu Mohammed, Publisher of Wikki Times who has spent more than 24hrs in detention. We demand that he should be charged to court should his traducers believe he has committed any offence.

PRESS FREEDOM & JOURNALISTS SAFETY ALERT (Issue 2)

Meanwhile, the international Press Centre has released its second newsletter on journalist’s situation report during the coverage of the 2023 election. The report is titled: PRESS FREEDOM & JOURNALISTS SAFETY ALERT . The newsletter is supported by MacArthur Foundation

The content:

The report presents the worrisome trend of the violation of the rights of journalists and the media in Nigeria in the year 2021 as documented by the Safety of Journalists Alert Desk of the International Press Centre (IPC), which documented not less than forty-one (41) incidents of attacks on journalists and other media professionals with fifty-seven (57) of them affected, varying from unlawful arrests/detention, physical assaults, threat to life, abduction, invasion, threat to sanction, and murder. Incidents of threats and attacks on media organisations were also encountered.

Quite significant was the fact that among the attacks were those targeted at some of the journalists who were on legitimate duty to cover the #ENDSARs one-year anniversary protests in Lagos and other parts of the country on Wednesday October 20, 2021.

The International Press Centre (lPC) Lagos-Nigeria is Nigeria’s foremost media resource centre dedicated to building media capacities for democracy and development.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT

The report was produced with the support of MacArthur Foundation