BACKPAGE COMMENT: Senseless, Callous, Futile

The episode at Kaduna was messier and even more deadly. The targeted building houses the local offices of three newspapers—This Day, Sun and The Moment—in addition to other offices and shops. The men who drove the bomb-laden car, said to be two in number, shouted and alerted all around that they had a bomb. They […]

The episode at Kaduna was messier and even more deadly. The targeted building houses the local offices of three newspapers—This Day, Sun and The Moment—in addition to other offices and shops. The men who drove the bomb-laden car, said to be two in number, shouted and alerted all around that they had a bomb. They then tried to abandon the car. One of them was caught by people around while the other one apparently escaped. The subsequent explosion killed at least eight people and wounded many more. Two of the injured persons later died in hospital.

Last Thursday’s ugly episode in Abuja and Kaduna brought a whole new dimension to the spate of bombings that has gripped this country in the past year and a half, most of them blamed on the violent Boko Haram sect. Although the sect had earlier claimed responsibility for the murder of a Nigerian Television Authority, Maiduguri news reporter sometime last year, this was the first time that newspaper offices were specifically and murderously targeted.

Even though This Day newspaper appears to be the main target of this attack, there is no doubt that this attack was targeted at the Nigerian news media as a whole, because there is nothing that This Day, The Sun or The Moment newspapers wrote or did by way of reporting or commenting on violent episodes in the country that other Nigerian newspapers had not done.

Although the police have said investigations are still on, on the day of the attacks, a man claiming to speak for Boko Haram spoke to some newsmen and claimed responsibility for the attacks. He said, among other things, that the newspaper offices were targeted because Boko Haram “is at war against the Nigerian government” and that the news media “took sides with the government.” He also accused newsmen of misquoting the sect’s statements, of refusing to abide by some of the sect’s clarifications such as that it was Abu Darda and not Abu Qaqa that was captured by the SSS, and also of “not being professional” in their job of reporting violence in the country.

If indeed that statement was from Boko Haram sect and represented its position, then it must be told in no uncertain terms that its position is ill-informed and untenable and represents merely another dastardly twist in its tales.

If, as the sect said, it is at war against the government of Nigeria, it certainly did not consult with or obtain the consent of most Nigerians before it unleashed this war. This is a “war” in which, so far, hundreds if not thousands of people in many parts of this country have been killed or maimed with untold property damage. It has also spawned fear and anxiety all across the country and has invited security counter-measures that have all but paralysed business and social activities in many parts of Northern Nigeria. It is therefore unjust and unreasonable to demand that citizens support the sect in this “war,” and that includes the Nigerian news media.

A violent campaign to target and kill security agents, to overthrow the Constitution of the Federal Republic and ultimately to dismember Nigeria cannot be supported by the Nigerian news media, which derives a lot of its legitimacy, protection and privileges from the same Constitution. As for Nigeria itself, there cannot be a “Nigerian media” if there is no Nigeria!

Still, in the very difficult circumstances that it has found itself, the Nigerian media has done a fairly good job of reporting violent events all over this country as well as the counter events and episodes that they generate. There have been countless stories in the newspapers and on the airwaves about the sect’s aims and demands, quoting its official spokespersons, its literature, its cassette tapes and its postings on U-Tube. There is no one in Nigeria today who does not know that the sect is protesting the extra-judicial killing of its leaders in 2009, a matter which was very well reported by Nigerian newspapers and their foreign counterparts even before the sect began its violent campaign.

Needless to say, last Thursday’s attacks on newspaper offices in Abuja has been roundly condemned by all sections of Nigerians and by all responsible voices abroad as well. It was cowardly, unjust, heinous, unjustified, unwarranted and callous. It will also not succeed in cowing Nigerian media men to stop reporting events and episodes with a professional, patriotic eye and to instead “support” the aims and objectives of a violent group.

We urge the security agencies to step up security around media houses all over the country just as they have taken tough measures to secure military and police barracks against possible attacks. We condole with the families of all those who died or suffered injuries in these heinous episodes and we urge all Nigerians to rededicate themselves to the continued search for peace and security in our country.