The Committee to Protect Journalists, COJ, a non-profit organisation that focuses on promoting press freedom worldwide, has condemned the trial and conviction of two Nigerian journalists for defamation.
In a statement dated 14 April, the CPJ said the two Nigerian journalists – Gidado Shuaib and Alfred Olufemi – “should never have been charged, let alone convicted, for publishing an investigative report about a factory.”
It said their conviction “sends a chilling message to the Nigerian press and highlights the urgent need for authorities to reform the country’s laws and ensure journalism is not criminalised.”
A magistrate’s court in Ilorin, Kwara State, on 7 February, convicted the journalists for publishing a defamatory article against Hillcrest Agro-Allied Industries Limited.
In the contested publication published by an online platform, News Digest, the article said Hillcrest Agro-Allied Industries Limited, a firm located at Kilometre 4, Ajase-Ipo along Offa Road, Amberi Village, Kwara State, allowed its staff members to smoke Indian hemp freely.
A.S Muhammad, the trial magistrate, said in the verdict that “the defendants had a common intention in publishing” the damaging article “and must have intended the natural consequences.”
Mr Muhammad further ruled that “the elements of defamation have been established by the prosecution.”
The magistrate sentenced the journalists to two months imprisonment with an option of N40,000 fine on one of the two counts preferred against them – the offence of conspiracy.
He sentenced each of them to a fine of N60,000 on the count of defamation or three months imprisonment in default of payment.
The magistrate clarified that “each of the convicts is to pay a fine of N100,000 only for the offences of conspiracy and defamation respectively, having been convicted.”
The journalists have since paid the fine.
Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, from New York, quoted in the organisation’s statement also condemned the method of bringing the journalists to custody.
The CPJ recalled that before the charges were filed, police leveraged their access to call data and briefly detained a News Digest web developer and at least two other journalists in their efforts to locate the journalists.
“The telecom surveillance used to bring the journalists into custody, followed by a more than three-year-long trial, demonstrates the lengths Nigerian authorities will go to arrest and prosecute the press,” Ms Quintal said.
