by Soji Lawal
An official says two journalists have been freed after being detained without charges for more than a week by the SSS following writing stories about a radical Islamist sect and alleged military abuses.
Mohammed Garba, president of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, said on Tuesday that Musa Mohammed Awwal and Aliyu Saleh, journalists with the weekly Hausa language newspaper, Al-Mizan, were freed around noon.
Garba said the two men had not been abused or mistreated while in custody. He said the two men may have to return for questioning again by Nigeria’s State Security Service.
The two journalists were arrested December 24 at their homes in Kaduna. Their newspaper has published a series of stories about alleged military abuses and the sect known as Boko Haram.
If we are to effectively pursue the independence that our work requires, it is important that the public understand and accept our role as a valid one and one vital to their own interests. The only way to assure that in this world of unlimited competition for the public mind is for the journalist to act with the responsibility their independence requires.
All these talks obout military abuses is boko haram propoganda and sadly enough so called journalists help spread such baseless lies. Journalists should first of all cataloge boko haram human rights abuses before those of the military or is it more convenient and harmless to talk about the military? Coward lots.
Gen. Owoye Azazi RIP said it that the Boko Haram sect cuts across the divide. A responsible journalist should not be talking of a sect that kills and maims under the guise of religion is abused. We are all Muslims and we should stop deceiving ourselves. Those journalists should have been releasing privileged information to the sect. They should be properly screened.