For saying on his Facebook page that Delta State youths mainly of the opposition parties have taken over the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and calling for the immediate removal of Dr. Gabriel Ogburu Ada, the state Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan ordered the arrest and detention of the Asaba correspondent of the Niger Delta STANDARD Newspaper, Prince Amour Udemude.
For saying on his Facebook page that Delta State youths mainly of the opposition parties have taken over the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and calling for the immediate removal of Dr. Gabriel Ogburu Ada, the state Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan ordered the arrest and detention of the Asaba correspondent of the Niger Delta STANDARD Newspaper, Prince Amour Udemude.
Udemude was arrested and detained for over six hours on Tuesday, April at the state CID Headquarters in Asaba for what the police are calling “sedition”. He was bailed at about 7pm.
Narrating his ordeal, Udemude who is also the Secretary of the Asaba Correspondents Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), confirmed that his arrest was connected to the comment he posted on Facebook, which was read by Governor Uduaghan. He said the governor had been hunting for him even before the incident, often enquiring from other journalists if he was among them, a situation he attributed to a previous story.
Udemude said, “The governor’s hunting for me became severe after I reported that the Asaba International Airport was not ready for any test flight and the governor went ahead with test flight on the Asaba airport,” adding that since then the state government had been planning to use security agents to arrest and intimidate him.
“The camel’s back was however broken when I posted the above comment on my Facebook page which Governor Uduaghan immediately capitalised on and regarded as sedition and I was told he allegedly drew the attention of the police and the State Security Service (SSS) and other security agents [to it] so that I could be arrested and detained.”
According to Udemude, he was convinced that Governor Uduaghan was behind his arrest and detention. He said, “On Saturday, April, 2nd, 2011 during the botched National Assembly elections, journalists in Warri who visited the governor at his residence in Warri called to inform me that Governor Uduaghan was asking after me among them and he brought out his handset where he read to every one’s hearing what I have posted on my Facebook page that Delta state youths have taken over INEC, protesting and calling for the immediate removal of the state Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Dr. Gabriel Ogburu Ada for lack of confidence. Shortly after that encounter security agents started hunting for me.”
Reacting to his client’s arrest, an Asaba based lawyer, Mr. Chuks Ebu, described the arrest and detention of the journalist by the police on the alleged orders of the state governor as “mere intimidation,” which he condemned in strong terms.
Mr. Ebu said in his statement that it was unfortunate that a state government could stoop so low to order the arrest of a journalist for a comment posted on Facebook, alerting the general public of the dangers of law enforcement agencies being used against the media.
“This is a threat to democracy and human rights; it is an affront to fundamental human rights of the citizen and of the profession which is guaranteed by the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” he said. “It is an intimidation of the highest order by the state government who (sic) is using the security agents who are supposed to protect the citizenry are now been used to arrest and detain journalists carrying out their lawful duty, it’s a pity. It is a democratic right, it’s not a right given by any government, the right that is entrenched and enshrined in the constitution and it’s guaranteed. So for a police who is aware of the provision I have stated will now go to arrest a journalist while in the cause of performing his lawful duty reported an event whether through any medium of either Facebook, Newspaper, Radio, Television or the Internet you begin to arrest him, then you should be ready to arrest all the journalists in the whole World.”
Quoting from relevant sessions of the constitution and the Article 8 and 9 of the African Chartered of Peoples and Human rights which has been ratified by Nigeria, the lawyer stressed that the fundamental rights of Mr. Udemude been infringed upon by the state government and the police and that the state government must surely pay for it.
He further said that the Facebook comment that youths had taken over INEC which the journalist posted, leading to the governor’s order to have him arrested and detained, was also published as an advert by the PDP state chairman in Vanguard Newspapers of April 7 with the caption “Warning on the seizure of INEC office by DPP thugs,” noting that the general public is now asking why the sponsor of that advert has not been arrested and detained by security agents.
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