Barely 24 hours after President Goodluck Jonathan urged the media to give less publicity to the activities of the Boko Haram sect and other terrorist organisations, soldiers have began a massive clampdown on media establishments across the country.
Already, armed soldiers in their hundreds have prevented the distribution of Friday’s edition of some newspapers in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo state, just as the circulation vehicles going to the South South and South East with the papers were stopped at Ore and Warri in Ondo and Delta states respectively.
In Ibadan, reports have it that three newspaper vans were also impounded, their drivers detained with their phones seized.
The soldiers have however cordoned off all roads leading to Oke Padre, a major distribution point for newspapers and magazines in the South West.
Chairman, Newspaper Distribution Agents of Nigeria, NDAN Oyo State, Abimbola Tunde said more than 100 soldiers stormed the distribution point and seized all the papers.”We don’t know any reason for this”, he said.
Similarly van conveying the some newspapers to Warri and Benin City was seized by soldiers of the Third Battalion of the Nigerian Army at Okwuokoko, Delta State.
Similarly, a detachment of troops reportedly stormed The Nation’s circulation depot located on Effurun, Sapele in search of the newspapers and the company’s staff.
It was further learnt that troops also invaded the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Press Centre in Benin in a similar mission to seize Friday’s edition of the papers.
It would be recalled that President Goodluck Jonathan had on Thursday advised the media to desist from celebrating terrorists in their reports.
Jonathan who spoke in Abuja at a book launch titled: “What they don’t teach you in broadcasting” written by Orji Ogbonnaya Orji said terrorists should not be motivated by reports on them to keep engaging in their violent acts.
The President who was represented by Minister of Information, Labaran Maku said though the public should be informed of happenings in the society, terrorist should not be given undue attention.
Terrorist, according to Jonathan “need publicity to be recognized and they depend on the media but they do not deserve the type of publicity the media is giving them.”
He said reports on terrorism should not be written to incite the people against one another, religion, and the government but should in a way unite the people to fight the terrorists.
Jonathan said the government was doing its best to curb the menace of insurgency but noted that “the problem we are facing is that these insurgents live with us.”
“The media should sensitize the public with their reports so that they can unite and fish them out thereby bring terrorism to an end quickly. I am not saying that you shouldn’t report when there are, say, terrorists’ attacks on innocent citizens but we must report from the point of view of arousing society to reject their message, to unite society against what they are doing.
“I am still calling on all of us to be able define the thin line that exists between the urge to report and the need to protect. We need to really come to a definition of what the responsibility of the media should be to organizations and persons whose major objective is to destroy society, to incite hatred among normal people. I have said it that if we black out terrorism for a period, I am sure it will go down,” the President stated.
Jonathan added that terrorism and related activities could only be tackled effectively if all segments of society, particularly the media join forces against it.
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