A non-governmental organisation with focus on Access to information and freedom of expression, Media Rights Agenda (MRA) has called on the federal government to apprehend the gunmen who abducted Ms Chinenye Iwuoha, a presenter with the Pacesetter FM station of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) in Umuahia, Abia State.
Ms. Iwuoha was reportedly kidnapped by gunmen at about 7pm on May 4 on her way home from work. She was reported to have been traveling in a vehicle with the station’s general manager and the other employees when they were attacked .
The gunmen were reported to have later made a ransom demand to the broadcast station for the payment of N20 million for the release of the presenter.
MRA’s Director of Programmes, Mr Ayode Longe, In a statement in Lagos, reminded the Federal Government that although it had a duty to ensure the security of all citizens, it has a heightened responsibility to protect media practitioners because they perform an essential function in the interest of the society as mandated by the Constitution.
Longe said, the government also has an obligation under international instruments to provide a safe and conducive environment for journalists and other media workers to carry out their work as well as to ensure their safety.
He noted that there has been an upsurge in attacks against journalists and other media workers in Nigeria by public office holders, law enforcement and security agents as well as non-state actors, stressing that any failure on the part of the Government to act decisively in the case of Ms Iwuoha would likely embolden other groups and individuals to think that they can get away with such attacks.
Longe therefore urged the law enforcement operatives to ensure that perpetrators of the attack on Ms Iwuoha are promptly apprehended and brought to justice in order to send a strong message to criminal elements in the society that there will be no impunity for such acts.
Segun Fatuase
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