The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), said on Sunday that the Federal Government had vowed to end crimes committed against citizens including journalists with impunity.
The minister said this in a statement issued by his Special Assistant on Media and Public Relations, Dr. Umar Jibrilu Gwandu, to mark the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, which commemorated annually on November 2.
The statement was titled, ‘Malami Welcomes CPJ Report, says Nigeria Vows to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists’.
The AGF noted that it was gratifying to note that “Nigeria is no longer among the countries with impunity for crimes against journalists”, referring to the 2020 Global Index for Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists released on Wednesday by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The report indicated that Nigeria is the only country that came off the index from 2019.
He recalled that in the last decade before the current regime of President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria had ranked 13th across the globe and used to be among top three African countries with impunity for crimes against journalists only after Somalia and South Sudan.
Malami attributed the feat achieved by Nigeria in the new index to the “deliberate and committed efforts of the President Muhammadu Buhari led Federal Government through the implementation of many reforms in the Nigerian justice sector to include increased access to justice, speedy justice dispensation, decongestion of Nigeria’s correctional centers and judicious implementation of the Criminal Justice Act and Justice Sector reforms.”
He said with the “solid foundation of reformed justice sector to be bequeathed by Buhari Administration, never again will Nigeria feature among nations where journalists, citizens and inhabitants of the country will suffer from any form of impunity in the future”.
