Media Rights Agenda (MRA) on Monday condemned the military invasion, occupation and takeover of the Abuja and Maiduguri offices of Daily Trust newspaper.
The organisation also called on the Federal Government to take punitive action against the perpetrators of the act in order to end the cycle of abuse of power by military officers.
While commending President Muhammadu Buhari for his “swift response to the unlawful and unjustifiable action of the military” in directing the soldiers to immediately vacate the premises of the newspaper, MRA’s Programme Director, Ayode Longe, said: “It is imperative that the President takes further action to discourage this sort of highhandedness in future as anything short of punitive action against the perpetrators of the act would amount to encouraging impunity. We therefore call on the President to demonstrate his commitment to the rule of law and disdain for abuse of power and impunity.”
MRA’s statement was in response to the action of armed soldiers who on Sunday raided, occupied and sealed off the offices of the Daily Trust newspaper in Abuja and Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, and arrested the newspaper’s regional editor, Uthman Abubakar, and one of its reporters, Ibrahim Sawab, in Maiduguri.
Saying that it was not enough for Buhari to ask the military to vacate the newspaper’s premises, Mr. Longe insisted that “whatever offence the newspaper or its reporters may have committed, if indeed they committed any offence, there is a presumption under our Constitution that a person is innocent until proven guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction. The military has by its actions judged, condemned and carried out its judgment on the newspaper and its reporters having made itself the accuser and constituted itself into a law court and the judgment enforcer. This is strange in a democracy and does not portray the government as a respecter of the rule of law”
MRA called on the Federal Government to order a thorough investigation into the raid of the newspaper’s premises to identify the perpetrators as well as those who ordered it and prosecute them accordingly.
