Abuja — The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomed the February 14 decision by an appeal court in Nigeria's western Kwara State acquitting journalists Gidado Yushau and Alfred Olufemi of criminal conspiracy and defamation, charges for which they were convicted last year, and reiterates the call for Nigerian authorities to reform their country's laws to ensure journalism is never criminalized.
In a February 14 decision, a Kwara State High Court dismissed a February 2023 magistrate judgment convicting Yushau, publisher of the privately owned website News Digest, and freelance reporter Olufemi of criminal defamation and conspiracy. The high court ruled that the findings of the magistrate court did not sufficiently prove conspiracy and defamation offenses, and that the original judgment was premised on a police "investigation report which came out before the arrest" of the journalists, according to the decision.
"The acquittal of Nigerian journalists Gidado Yushau and Alfred Olufemi is welcome, but the two should have never been tracked down using telecom surveillance, charged, or convicted for their reporting," said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ's Africa program, from New York. "Lawmakers in Nigeria must reform their country's laws to ensure that acts of journalism are never criminalized."
Yushau and Olufemi's 2023 convictions were related to a 2018 report about the alleged use of cannabis by employees at a rice processing facility and followed a complaint by a company representative of Hillcrest Agro-Allied Industries, which owns the facility.
Police arrested and charged the journalists in 2019, leveraging access to call data and briefly detaining a News Digest web developer and at least two other journalists in their efforts to locate Yushau and Olufemi.
Yushau told CPJ that while the appeal court decision had brought some relief, he and Olufemi continue to face a civil lawsuit in a Kwara State high court over the same 2018 report, in which Hillcrest Agro-Allied Industries is seeking 500 million naira (over US$300,000) in damages.
"If we lose it will definitely take us out of work," Yushau said of the civil suit. Their next court date is scheduled for April 30, according to the journalists' lawyer, Ahamad Sa'eed Ibrahim-Gambari.
