Journalists as targets for abduction

The journalists were performing their legitimate duty of covering activities relating to the planned unveiling ceremony of the 16 billion dollar Delta Gas City project as part of the Export Processing Zone (EPZ) in Escravos when the incident happened. Apparently, they were victims of the age-old rivalry between the Ijaw and Itsekiri ethnic groups quarrelling […]

The journalists were performing their legitimate duty of covering activities relating to the planned unveiling ceremony of the 16 billion dollar Delta Gas City project as part of the Export Processing Zone (EPZ) in Escravos when the incident happened. Apparently, they were victims of the age-old rivalry between the Ijaw and Itsekiri ethnic groups quarrelling over the location of the project.
The reporters, representing different media organisations in Delta State, were returning to Warri after covering a press conference at Ogidigben, an Itsekiri community in Warri Southwest local government area, when some armed youths, believed to be Ijaw, in six speedboats ambushed and kidnapped them near Oporoza, headquarters of Gbaramatu kingdom.
The abductors, identified by the reporters as agents of an ex-Niger Delta militant leader, Chief Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, ransacked the journalists’ bags and seized their phones, cameras, voice recorders, wristwatches, and confiscated their memory cards to prevent them from publishing or broadcasting the event they had just covered.
The substance of the press conference was to state the position of the Itsekiri on the EPZ project. About four days earlier, Tompolo had held a similar briefing where he was reported to have expressed the dissatisfaction of the Ijaw with the location and naming of the project, and threatened to disrupt the groundbreaking ceremony that President Goodluck Jonathan was scheduled to perform last week. The threat forced the government to call off the event.
The reporters alleged that they were mistreated in captivity in the ex-militant leader’s house. They also alleged that, in order to blackmail them into silence, guns were planted in their boats and then accused them of gunrunning. According to them, one of the reasons given by their abductors for the ordeal was that they failed to obtain permission from Tompolo to navigate the delta waterways.
If the reporters’ account is true, Chief Ekpemulo and his agents need to explain the source of their power to constitute themselves into a parallel state authority. This kind of conduct indeed is an affront not only on the media but also a serious challenge to state power and authority that must be punished.  The incident appeared to give a lie to the notion that ex-militants in the Niger Delta had disarmed under the amnesty programme that the late President Umaru Musa Yar’daua worked out for them. Otherwise, why do they still bear arms, acting like a parallel force in the country?
The tepid apology that the Delta State Government offered to the traumatised reporters and the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) nearly a week after the incident is the kind of condemnable action that only emboldens such criminal activity to thrive. The government should be investigating the incident, possibly bringing charges against the culprits, not cuddling them. Kidnapping is a criminal offence under the laws and, in Delta State, punishable by death.
The failure to arrest, investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of various acts of lawlessness that happen every so often in that region is a national embarrassment. The fact the threat from one of them would compel the calling off an event at which the president was expected is a disgrace. No responsible government should tolerate this brigandage by any persons or groups.
It rankles that the journalists should be the objects of this ridiculous and wanton display of illegitimate power. If the two communities harbour some animosity against each other because of the location of a project that would bring development and economic empowerment to the region, how can that be a crime that the journalists should be singled out for this barbarity?  Journalists should not be the scapegoats to settle ethnic scores. It is the duty of the NUJ to rise to the occasion and resist any attempt by warring groups to involve journalists in their propaganda war. It should take steps to seek redress in court on behalf of their obviously traumatised members who, mercifully, were released by the captors, days later.