The guests and participants were of premium quality and influential in their respective offices. They are media and security management members. They gathered this fateful day for an important burning issue; the protection of Nigerian journalists and the continually shrinking civic space. Another major point of the meeting was convened to find engagement solutions, with the end goal of committing to proactive protection of the journalist and the civic space.
It was certainly not your everyday run-off-the-mill kind of meeting, where guests get to cherry-pick subjects to discuss amidst shy smiles. It was an intense high-level meeting, during which media executives, journalists and security agencies opened their hearts.
It was a no-holds-barred meeting, with journalists sharing their nasty encounters with security agents in the course of their work. The no-holds-barred event witnessed intense and candid interactions as participants gave opinions and perceived reasons behind the continual and recurring skirmishes between security agents and journalists.
While giving her remark, she said that Nigeria as a country can fall or rise depending on the actions or inactions of the stakeholders. She also noted that democracy works on checks and balances between the executive, legislature and the judiciary, stressing that the news media is constitutionally empowered to make all the authorities and dynamics of power in public and private spaces accountable to their functions.
These findings demand action. We cannot afford to be aloof. Last year, Haruna Mohammed Salisu of WikkiTimes was arrested in Duguri, Bauchi State, after being attacked by supporters of the state governor while interviewing protesting women. During the End Bad Governance protests on the 3rd of August, masked security forces in Abuja fired bullets and tear gas at 18 journalists covering events at the national stadium.
