Groups condemn the sentencing of journalists in Nigeria over a report on cannabis use in a politician factory

Two organizations condemned the sentencing of two journalists in Nigeria who were arrested in 2019 after exposing smoking weed at a shop linked to a senior politician. While Nigeria is the third highest consumer of cannabis in the world, the plant is illegal in the country, according to the New Zealand Department of Health. Some consider it a double standard for officials and commoners.

The Eagle reports that the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Center (CISLAC) have condemned the sentencing of two young Nigerian journalists, Gidado Yushau and Alfred Olufemi, over an investigative report. CPJ, an independent, non-profit organization that campaigns for press freedom around the world, described the conviction as “a chilling message to the Nigerian press.” The Eagle called it an “inglorious attempt to silence the press and investigative journalism in Nigeria”.

Yushau is editor of The News Digest and organizer of the annual Campus Journalism Awards (CJA), while Olufemi is a freelance journalist, with bylines in Premium Times and Punch, two Africa-based newspapers. It’s not the publications’ first dance with the danger: Premium Times, for example, exposed crimes allegedly committed by Boko Haram against women and civilians.

Both journalists were arrested in 2019 and charged in court after writing an investigative report exposing the spread of marijuana smoking by workers at a rice factory in Kwara, Nigeria, linked to Hillcrest Agro-Allied Industries. Why is this significant? Hillcrest Agro-Allied Industries is linked to a senior official: Economic Advisor to the President Sarah Aladea, formerly Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The organization’s leaders fear the arrests are politically motivated. On February 7, Adams Salihu Mohammed, a judge in Ilorin, Nigeria, ordered the journalists to be held in jail for five months for alleged crimes of “slander and conspiracy” or to pay a heavy fine of N100,000 each. They ended up paying the fines to avoid jail time during the trial.

A chilling message for journalists in Nigeria

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the journalists will get a fair trial, according to their legal counsel.

“There was evidence before the trial court that the police report allegedly indicting our clients was prepared before they were invited by the police,” said Barrister Ahmed Ibraheem Gambari, a lawyer representing one of the journalists. after they were sentenced. In other words, the police found them guilty of the “crime” long before they were allowed to share their own side of the story. The journalists’ claims were supported by former rice factory employees, who said it was common to smoke weed on the job.

“Additionally, a former employee of the company testified in court that not only did he witness Indian hemp smoking permeate the site, but it was the continued Indian hemp smoking that prompted his decision to terminate his employment , influenced with the company,” Gambari said. “Furthermore, in support of his allegation, the same witness produced his bank statement showing that he had received his monthly salaries from the company during the period when smoking was widespread. It therefore remains a mystery how the court found them guilty in the face of, among other things, this empirical evidence.”

New York-based CPJ Africa program coordinator Angela Quintal said the two should never have been charged, let alone convicted. “The telecom surveillance that was used to take the journalists into custody, followed by a process lasting more than three years, shows the lengths to which Nigerian authorities are going to arrest and prosecute the press,” Quintal said.

International human rights courts and UN agencies have repeatedly denounced the use of criminal sanctions for “defamation”.