The Nigerian Guild of Editors, NGE has criticized the Nigerian Army for seizing copies of some national newspapers on Friday.
The NGE stated this in a statement issued on Friday. The NGE decried what it described as a random, forceful seizure of PUNCH, Leadership and The Nation newspapers in Lagos and Kaduna including South-South and South-East regions of the country by the military.
The body of news editors strongly condemned what it described as an onslaught on the publishing houses which it said caused them “huge economic losses.”
But in a reaction to the development,Major General Chris Olukolade, Director of Defence Information said the army made the seizures after it received “intelligence reports indicating movement of materials with grave security implications across the country, using the channel of newsprint related consignments.”
The NGE however said the army’s explanation “is unacceptable to us.” The NGE added that, “it goes a long way to reinforce the apocryphal believe quite commonplace among security agencies that they are much more patriotic than anybody else.”
“They (Army) had been inching to open a battlefront with the country’s ever-irrepressible media, and thus hid behind a smokescreen to deal a lethal blow at the economic jugular of newspapers,” the group also stated.
WhatsApp us