UPDATED: PREMIUM TIMES reporter, 27 other journalists attacked while covering #EndBadGovernance protests

At least 28 journalists, including a PREMIUM TIMES reporter, were either arrested or attacked while covering the #EndBadGovernance protests across Nigeria.

On Thursday, police officers hit Yakubu Mohammed, a conflict reporter with PREMIUM TIMES, with the butt of their gun and their batons until he sustained injuries on his head.

He was then arrested and briefly detained in a police van placed near the Head of Service Building in the Secretariat area of Abuja.

Mr Mohammed was wearing a press vest that clearly identified him as a journalist and also presented his identity card to the police officers.

“They told me they were not concerned about my ID card and that they had even arrested an NUJ chairman earlier,” Mr Mohammed told his editors minutes after he was released.

Mr Mohammed and other PREMIUM TIMES journalists joined their colleagues from other newsrooms to cover the #EndBadGovernance protest in Abuja.

This newspaper reported how the protest turned rowdy after the police fired tear gas at protesters.

Targeted

Recounting his ordeal, Mr Mohammed said he believes he was targeted because “I was filming the moment they turned violent against the protesters.”

He said he was recording some protesters chanting slogans when the police officers turned on him.

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“A policeman wearing a bulletproof vest and helmet just raced towards me and grabbed my trousers,” Mr Mohammed recalled. “All my efforts to identify and explain myself to him were rebuffed.”

“The policeman, who was later joined by other officers, asked me to kneel down and submit my phone but I refused,” he continued, adding that the officers resorted to brutalising him until they forcefully took his phone and threw him inside the police van. They later released him and gave him back his phone.

Mr Mohammed sustained a head injury and pain on his right shoulder.

28 journalists victimised by police and hoodlums

Apart from Mr Mohammed and Jide Oyekunle, the Abuja NUJ chairman, 12 other journalists were assaulted by police operatives in Abuja, Cross River and Borno states, according to the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID).

The failure of the police to provide adequate security also emboldened hoodlums to attack journalists.

“In Delta State, journalists were attacked by pro-government protesters who assaulted protesters intending to disrupt their demonstration,” CJID noted in a statement signed by Busola Ajibola, the organisation’s Deputy Director, Journalism Program.

“Some of the journalists who fell victim to this attack are Guardian Newspaper reporter Monday Osayande and Punch Newspaper reporter Matthew Ochei. They were both attacked while interviewing protesters.”

“Weapon-bearing hoodlums” also injured a reporter with African Independent Television (AIT), while covering the Thursday protest.

“About eleven journalists were also attacked in a Channels TV vehicle…, and in the process, TVC correspondent Ibrahim Isah was injured while trying to escape the scene,” the organisation added.

The police are yet to issue a statement about the attacks on journalists covering the protests despite allegations by the Abuja NUJ chairman who said the FCT police commissioner, Beneth Igwe, ordered the assault on him and other journalists covering the Abuja protest.