Nigeria: Condemnable War Against the Press

The clampdown on the media by the military last weekend - confiscating and destroying newspapers - including subjecting media workers to harassment and arrest is condemnable. That ugly development amounted to waging war against the press and it reminds one of the dark days of military dictatorship especially as epitomised by the Abacha regime when press freedom was taken away and the rights of the Nigerian people to have access to information were trampled upon gleefully by Abacha and its agents.

Basing its anti-press action on a flimsy excuse of looking for 'materials of grave security implications meant to be distributed through newspaper channels' the military sent its boys to confiscate some newspapers in the Federal Capital, Abuja and some other parts of the country; a development that affected distributions of newspapers to certain parts of the country resulting in denying the people access to information.

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