When the news broke of how the Nigerian Police promised to protect members of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) who had perfected their strategies to mobilise for a national protest against the nation’s harsh economic conditions occasioned by President Bola Tinubu’s economic reforms, affirming the fundamental right of all citizens of the country to engage in peaceful protest in line with extant laws, not a few took the pledge with a pinch of salt.

Nigerian Security agents, and indeed those in many nations of the World, are known to be aversed to civil actions capable of rattling the seat of power, which the men in uniform believe must be protected, even at the price of shedding the blood of the innocent citizens. There are myths yet to be uncoded to explain the psychology of secrecy around the making of the security agents as against that of the culture of openness which constantly pitches the men of the press against the state security personnel.

It was Zack Beauchamp, a senior correspondent at Vox, who had attempted to unravel the common ideology that often shapes police psychological makeup when dealing with the rest of “us” and how this poses significant challenges to democracy and the freedom of the press across the board.

As Zack revealed, Police officers, even in America have adopted a set of beliefs about their work and its role in our society. The tenets of police ideology are not codified or written down but are nonetheless widely shared in departments around the country. According to him, “The ideology holds that the world is a profoundly dangerous place: Officers are conditioned to see themselves as constantly in danger and that the only way to guarantee survival is to dominate the citizens they’re supposed to protect. The police believe they’re alone in this fight; police ideology holds that officers are under siege by criminals and are not understood or respected by the broader citizenry.”

Indeed, the “profound danger” Zack refers to is a common melting point and the security agents constantly, unconsciously allow this to give them out. That’s why unarmed citizens have ironically become a threat which must either be managed or eliminated. Nigerian Police, and indeed Lagos Command was able to manage this threat this time!

This is reflected in the conversation of the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Adegoke Fayoade: “I provided water and biscuits because I don’t want anyone to collapse on the way., We have to use water to strengthen everybody. That is the least we could do. The protest went on as agreed with the NLC leadership. We promised them protection from the beginning to the end”.

To be fair, there have been cases of civility by state security agents in a couple of places across the World. In 2020, Malawi’s army was reported to have protected protesters who had been calling for electoral justice, after the disputed presidential elections in that country. The army, in collaboration with the police, protected thousands of civilians who marched on the electoral commission’s office where they “chained and padlocked its entrance — and handed the keys to an army officer.”

Also in 2020, America’s police officers showed solidarity with the protesters by hugging, praying and mourning with them while also taking a knee to honour George Floyd. Who died at the hands of Minneapolis police.

While these gestures of civility are commendable, evidence of strained relationships between the security agencies, especially the police, and members of the press, shows a sort of sustained suspicion that the “profound danger” identified by Zack is being fueled by the journalists doing their work.

Questions are often raised: Why do the police arrest, harass, and intimidate journalists even when they can always be partners to succeed together on national duty? As reported by the Centre for Journalism Development and Innovation (CJID) through its Press Attack Tracker project, the security personnel formed the biggest perpetrators of attacks against press freedom at 31% as, at least, 45 cases of harassment and infringements suffered by journalists were recorded in the first quarter of 2023.

Also, the International Press Centre (IPC), in its 2023 report on the state of press freedom in Nigeria, stated that sixty-six Nigerian journalists and three media houses suffered diverse forms of attacks in 2022 with major incidents carried out by the security agencies. In another report by Spaces for Change (S4C), journalists are more targeted by repressive practices than any other group of civic actors in West Africa, underscoring a hostile environment for journalists, bloggers, investigative reporters, and the news media to function freely.

It is worrisome that the security agents have not seen, or deliberately ignored the constitutional significance of the press in ensuring a stable national security. Rather, the suspicion of conspiracy to public nuisance against journalists covering protests, informing the public of issues of national importance, and investigating social ills is significantly at the root of the strained relationship between the security agencies and the press.

Painful still, the promulgation, and indeed the retention of the draconian and infamous “bad laws” in our national legal encyclopedia including The Newspaper Act 1917; Press Registration Act, 1933; Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act, 1961; Defamation Act, 1961; Emergency Powers Act, 1961; Seditious Meeting Act 1961; Official Secrets Act, 1962; and the Newspaper Amendments Act, 1964, are constantly eroding the fundamental rights of the press and journalists and indeed the citizens’ crave for accountability and freedom.

Despite that Nigeria is a signatory to many international, regional, and sub-regional legal instruments guaranteeing the freedom of the press and free expression, these draconian laws largely remain unreviewed and security agencies are often quick to charge journalists based on the stringent penalties and conditions entrenched in them.

Perhaps, the strained relationship between security agencies and the media is not fundamentally rooted in the legislation but in the implementation of the laws, no matter how draconian. Security agencies are at liberty to execute any legislation with a human face, irrespective of the dictates of the laws.

Rebecca Tidy has suggested that “the real issue in police-media relations is much deeper and thus more difficult to solve, it lies with a problematic law enforcement culture…” The Nigerian Police hierarchy might as well have begun to review the so-called “problematic enforcement culture” by ordering commissioners of police in all states to ensure the protesters are protected: Iit is important to know that the fundamental rights of all individuals including the police and other law enforcement agents are strongly protected in an environment that guarantees the rights of the media to operate freely. The police hierarchy has earned a bit of public confidence for being civil in the last NLC rally. Can the system extend similar civility to the Nigerian journalists while doing their legitimate work? The World is watching!