FIJ called Onyema Nwachukwu, the spokesperson for the Nigerian Army, but he did not respond. At press time, he had not replied to the text message sent to him.
By Emmanuel Uti
Emmanuel Obe, a Nigerian photojournalist, has narrated how officers of the Nigerian Army in Abia State harassed and detained him for taking pictures of a roundabout.
Obe told FIJ that during the time he spent with the soldiers, they likened him to a terrorist, despite his explanation that he had only stopped to take pictures of the environment.
He said he also showed the officers other pictures he had taken to authenticate his claim that he was a photographer, but they wouldn’t believe him. According to Obe, an angry officer would have hit him with a baton if he were not elderly.
Obe said he found himself in the soldiers’ net on November 26 at Azumini in Abia State while travelling from Port Harcourt to Calabar. He said the soldiers had told his driver to park their car when they reached the military checkpoint at Azumini, which they did.
Once they all alighted for a search, Obe said he found a nice roundabout for pictures. A monument he saw around the roundabout looked so good that he decided to take pictures for an ongoing story idea of his.
“Not long after I had taken some shots, a soldier saw me and signalled for me to come. When I went there, he said he saw me taking photographs. I affirmed his position but explained that I wanted to make a story out of it,” Obe told FIJ.
“But the soldier said I was taking photos of their checkpoints and that it was not allowed because there could be agents of terrorism around. He said terrorists had been gathering information about military formations in a similar manner before attacking them.”
Obe said he maintained his stance that he was only a journalist, not a terrorist. The soldiers’ next action, he said, was to go through the contents of his phone. When they did, apart from the pictures he had taken and other images, they found nothing incriminating or suspicious.
However, instead of allowing Obe to continue his journey to Calabar with the other passengers, the soldiers insisted he would be detained. According to Obe, the passengers pleaded with the soldiers to let him go, but they refused.
“They started telling me stories of how terrorists had attacked them. They kept me there for about two hours and deleted the photographs I had taken, along with other pictures. They let me go after deciding they had detained me long enough,” he said.
“They warned me before letting me go. They didn’t believe me despite telling them I was an innocent journalist. I then paid for alternative transportation. I got to Calabar very late that day and missed my appointment.”
FIJ called Onyema Nwachukwu, the spokesperson for the Nigerian Army, but he did not respond. At press time, he had not replied to the text message sent to him.
In recent times, the Nigerian Army has been found preventing journalists from doing their job as they deem fit. In December, Port Harcourt-based soldiers detained Fisayo Soyombo, FIJ’s Editor-in-Chief, for three days.
In November 2021, an Anambra-based soldier threatened to “stab” and “kill” Daniel Ojukwu, an FIJ journalist, for filming how soldiers forced civilians to alight from bikes and vehicles to walk past a checkpoint in the Ihiala Local Government Area of Anambra State with their hands raised.