Echotitbits – Nigeria News

Tag: Press Freedom

  • Police Dispute Brutality Claims as Akwa Ibom Schoolboy is Hospitalized

    Police Dispute Brutality Claims as Akwa Ibom Schoolboy is Hospitalized

    Premium Times reports a dispute in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, after a schoolboy was hospitalized under circumstances that the family attributes to police assault, while the State Police Command says the injuries resulted from a motorcycle traffic accident. The case has drawn heightened attention following the arrest of a local blogger who publicized the allegation online.

    Police sources described the blogger’s posts as malicious misinformation, while human-rights advocates have called for an independent medical evaluation to establish the factual cause and nature of the injuries.

    Leadership and Daily Post also reported on the controversy, including concerns raised by lawyers over the implications for press freedom and accountability, as well as police assurances of an internal investigation.

    Echotitbits take: The arrest of a blogger in a contested injury case quickly broadens into a national debate about transparency, policing, and civic space. Watch for calls for independent review—medical and legal—and for whether state actors step in to prevent escalation into mass protest dynamics.
    Source: Premium Times — https://www.premiumtimesng.com/regional/south-south-regional/851714-police-dispute-claim-over-injured-schoolboy-arrest-blogger.html?tztc=1 2026-01-24

    Photo Credit: Premium Times

  • Wield ‘freedom responsibly’, President Buhari tells Nigerian media

    Wield ‘freedom responsibly’, President Buhari tells Nigerian media

    On the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, observed globally every May 3, President Muhammadu Buhari recommits to freedom of the press, and urges media professionals to wield freedom responsibly, and without licentiousness.

    The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina noted that while celebrating the landmark day with the media, the President notes that freedom of the press is an irreducible minimum in a democracy that would flourish, adding that freedom must, however, be used responsibly.

    “That everything is permitted does not mean that there are no rules of correctness, particularly in a polity seriously challenged as ours now,” President Buhari says. “The media must be sensitive to what we are going through as a country, and anything that would exacerbate the situation, and further inflame passions and emotions, should be avoided.

    The media needs to ensure that while informing, educating, entertaining and setting agenda for public discourse, it does not encourage incendiary words and actions that could further hurt our unity in diversity.”

    Licentious freedom, the President says, is different from freedom with responsibility, and charges the Nigerian media to embrace the latter, rather than the former.

    On the part of government, President Buhari pledges greater cooperation with the media to discharge its duties, in line with the theme of this year’s World Press Freedom Day, ‘Information as a Public Good.’

    He charges those who manage information for government to do everything in public interest, while also encouraging the media to use the Freedom of Information Act available to make its jobs easier.

    The President submits that it is very vital to have access to reliable information in an era of misinformation, disinformation and hate speech, all to cause discord in society.