Owing from a series of arrests of bloggers, newspaper reporters, journalists, advocates are concerned that freedom of speech is greatly under attack in Nigeria.While the constitution of Africa’s most-populous country guarantees freedom of speech and the press, Peter Nkanga, West Africa representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said those rights are under attack.“More and more, that freedom is being eroded,” Nkanga said. “How is it being eroded? By the actions of government institutions and government authorities, who are ensuring that that freedom of expression, that freedom of the press that freedom to hold opinion, gradually, steadily, is being eroded, states VOA.”Nkanga pointed to a number of episodes in recent months as instances where Nigerian security forces went after people simply because of something they said or wrote.Musa Azare, a blogger known for being critical about the government of Bauchi state in the country’s northeast, also found himself under arrest this month.It’s not just journalists that are facing threats. Police took a man in the southwestern Ogun state this month into custody for naming his dog “Buhari,” after the president.Shuaib Leman, national secretary of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, says much of the ire directed at journalists come from politicians who don’t appreciate seeing allegations of corruption against them printed or broadcast.“I am not surprised that daily you find one instance or the other where a journalist is either picked up at the insistence of the state governor or a powerful politician for writing against corruption or for bringing up issues that need public attention and adequate scrutiny,” Leman said.When a journalist is attacked, Nkanga said the perpetrators of the assault rarely face charges.“Until you start to ensure that those who perpetrate attacks on journalists are brought to justice, there will hardly ever be a time when there will be [no] chill on them,” Nkanga said. “It has become a norm.”
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