Activists Condemn DSS for brutalizing Journalists in Osun
….gives 14 days ultimatum to apologize
A group, the Civil Societies Coalition for the Emancipation of Osun
State (CSCEOS) has strongly condemned the operatives of the Department
of State Services (DSS) in the State over Monday brutality of two
journalists (Timothy Agbor of The Point Newspapers, and Toba Adedeji
of the Osun Defender Newspaper), who were discharging their
constitutional duty by covering a protest by the Nigeria Union of
Local Government Employees to the State House of Assembly, described
the security agents action as barbaric and ungodly.
The group also threatened to sue the affected men of the Department of
State Service (DSS) in the Court of competent jurisdiction if they
failed to tender a public apology to the men of pen profession,
particularly, the affected Law abiding Journalists within fourteen
(14) days of committing dastard act, describing the development as bad
omen for the practitioners in the fourth estate of the realm.
According to the report that the trouble started when the journalists,
Agbor and Adedeji took pictures of the protesters along Osogbo-Gbongan
Road on their way to the House of Assembly.
A female operative of the DSS, dressed in a black polo shirt, accosted
Agbor and demanded to know his mission. The journalist was said to
have told the lady that he was a journalist and the report has it that
the lady got angry when Agbor also demanded the identity of the
operative.
It further described the action of the security agents as evil,
satanic, inhuman, undemocratic, unconstitutional, illegal, and
unacceptable and crime against God and humanity, advocating for the
protection of media practitioners’ right and media
practitioners in Nigeria, explaining that the media practioners who
were the voice of the voiceless would not be allowed to be subjected
to an undue intimidation in the course of carrying out their
legitimate duties for the nation.
In a statement issued and signed by the CSCEOS’ Chairman, Comrade
Adeniyi, Alimi Sulaiman and copies were made available to newsmen on
Tuesday, disclosed that the group received the news of the unjust
brutality of two journalists by the security agents with shock as they
also threatened to gun them down for no just offence than going about
their legitimate duty.
Comrade Sulaiman who called on the authority of the State Security
Service to commence immediate investigation into the matter by fishing
out its men that perpetrated the evil act with appropriate punishment
so as to serve as deterrents to other men of the agency who were not
civil in carrying out their official duties, recalling that men of the
profession, including Mr. Dele Giwa, Balguda Khalto and host of others
had lost their lives through the overzealousness of the security
agents in the country, adding that this dastard act should not be
allowed to sweep under the carpet.
Sulaiman who called for the immediate removal of the state Director of
the DSS, Ike Madunagwu, maintained that his men action shown that they
were enemies of current democratic experiment being enjoyed in the
land, adding that genuine rights activist and democrat would not allow
any uncivilized security agent to return the any segment of the
country back to the dark days of Military junta.
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