HOODED SOLDIERS & BRUTALISATION OF TVC JOURNALISTS: DANGER SIGNALS IN OSUN 2014

8^th August, 2014

PRESS RELEASE:

HOODED SOLDIERS & BRUTALISATION OF TVC JOURNALISTS: DANGER SIGNALS IN OSUN 2014

Soldiers wearing masks were allegedly spotted among the soldiers deployed to the State of Osun for tomorrow’s gubernatorial election. In another development, two journalists of the Television Continental (TVC), Ayodeji Moradeyo, a reporter and Binafia Miebi, a cameraman, were reportedly brutalised by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) loyalists at the secretariat of the PDP in Osogbo because they were at the PDP office on fact-finding mission.

The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) is appalled by the allegation that soldiers appear in hoods in Osun State at a time when the state is soaked in election tension. Soldiers in hoods can be anybody: fake security officials, political thugs, Boko Haram insurgents or Niger Delta militants. Anything is possible.

Equally worrisome is the alleged assault on TVC journalists. Whereas politicians in developed countries regard members of the press as partners and an integral part of electioneering, Nigerian politicians are turning journalists into punching bags.

MURIC strongly denounces these two developments. They constitute potent threats to a free and fair election. Hooded soldiers are serious sources of worry. They create fear and engender suspicion about the intention of the Federal Government. Attacks on pressmen during an election symptomise a lack of readiness to embrace transparency. With these developments, fears are being raised that the ground for a severely doctored gubernatorial election skewed in favour of the controllers of the security agencies is already well laid.

We therefore call on the Chief of Army Staff to explain to Nigerians if the hood is part of a soldier’s kit. We charge security agents and politicians in Osun State to give free access to journalists during the election.

We alert the Acting Inspector General of Police, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), election observers and the international community to these dangerous signposts. The world must know who to blame if there are hitches in the Osun gubernatorial election taking place tomorrow.

Professor Ishaq Akintola,

Director,

Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC)