If you get to read this column, you are probably one of the lucky Nigerians who have not been denied access to newspapers following the shocking crack down on media houses by the military.
Since Friday, nationwide distribution of newspapers has been disrupted by armed soldiers and other security men who claimed to be acting on instruction to search for explosives in circulation vehicles.
In enforcing the directive, newspaper distribution centres have been raided, vendors harassed, vehicles impounded and media houses’ vehicles seized.
True to the soldiers claim, the defence headquarters has confirmed that its men were acting on an intelligence report which indicated that dangerous materials were being moved through circulation vans.
“The general public and affected organizations in particular are assured that the exercise was a routine security action and should not be misconstrued for any other motive,” Director of Defence Information Major General Chris Olukolade said in his statement on Friday.
Considering the state of insecurity in the country, it is understandable why the security forces should be at alert and take every intelligence report seriously. They have come under a lot of criticisms for not being able to contain the sporadic attacks across the country by terrorists and other criminal gangs and should be seen to be doing everything possible to live up to the expectations of the people.
It is the duty of the government through the security agencies to ensure the security of lives and property and any step in this direction should be commended.
However, if for any reason there are indeed intelligence reports about use of newspaper distribution vans for moving explosives around the country, the searches could have been better done without leaving room for the motive of the military to be misconstrued.
Except the military believes that the managements of the media organizations could be party to the use of their vehicles for carrying the dangerous weapons, one would expected that the owners and managers of the affected organizations would have been contacted on the intelligence reports to seek their support to arrest anyone who may be using their vehicle without their knowledge.
Since the exercise has nothing to do with the content, operations and personnel of the media organizations as the defence spokesman said, there was no need to have stormed the distribution centres and stopped the distribution of the papers even after searching and finding nothing incriminating in the vehicles.
If the Friday seizures were the handiwork of overzealous soldiers acting beyond their brief as Major General Olukolade’s press statement suggested, why did the crackdown continue on Saturday and affected more newspapers.
Now that no dangerous materials have been found in the vehicles of the affected newspapers, who pays for the losses the media house have to incurred due to the inability to sell the seized copies.
The media and Nigerians deserve more explanation on what is really happening to warrant the undue assault on the freedom of the press under a democratic government.
Anyone or organisation , with enough evidence found liable of colluding with terrorists should not be spared. However, a situation where the media is being given a bad name for no justifiable reason to hang it is rather unfortunate.
For all the media has done, still doing and will do, in the efforts to end the reign of terror in the country, it should be regarded as a partner and not an enemy.