Dapo Olorunyomi, publisher of online newspaper, Premium TimesThe Federal Government of Nigeria will not stifle press freedom because it is the bedrock of any democracy, the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, pledged on Tuesday, after several journalists and news organisations came under attacks in recent weeks and days.
The journalists were arrested for writing or publishing stories that had to do with official corruption.
The minister said the arrest of Mr. Dapo Olorunyomi, Publisher of the online newspaper Premium Times, and a reporter working for the paper, Ms. Evelyn Okakwu, was a “private affair” involving a citizen and a privately-owned newspaper, and wondered how that could now be construed as an attempt by the government to intimidate the press.
The citizen the minister was referring to is Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General, Tukur Yusuf Buratai, who is accused of using proceeds from corruption to acquire multi million dollar property in Dubai.
Instead of suing the newspaper, policemen stormed the office of Premium Times last week and arrested its publisher and reporter working for the paper at gunpoint.
The military later said that General Buratai would sue Premium Times for defamation, after his request for a retraction of the story was turned down.
But, the minister said Buratai was acting as a citizen and his actions did not indict a government that came to power in 2015, promising to fight corruption tooth and nail.
”We have said it before and we want to re-state it: The Federal Government has no immediate or long-term plan to stifle press freedom,” Lai Mohammed said in a statement.
“Even the Social Media, with its warts and all, will neither be regulated nor have its operations tampered with,” he added in his statement released by his spokesman Segun Adeyemi.
Apart from Premium Times, Omoyele Sowore of Saraha Reporters and Desmond Utowen of Fresh News were arrested recently in Lagos and Abuja respectively in relation to corruption stories they had written.
Many had warned that the freedom of the press was being stifled under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, a former military dictator turned democrat.