ICIR
THE Nigeria Police Force (NPF) has said it will review its election duty guidelines to ensure protection of journalists during elections.
The Force Public Relations Officer (PRO) Olumuyiwa Adejobi disclosed this while speaking during a Twitter Space organised by the Wole Soyinka Centre on the topic, ‘How safe were journalists during 2023 elections?’
Speaking on attacks on journalists during the polls, Adejobi said the police will review its guidelines to ensure that journalists and observers are given more protection in future elections.
“There was a pocket book we published on election duty guidelines for officers, I think we are going to make an amendment to that. For other elections we want to have, we are going to review these guidelines to include protection of journalists and observers that will be moving up and down on election duty.”
He assured that the NPF is working on cases of attacks on journalists recorded during the election and also called on journalists to bring forward cases that have not been attended to.
“So cases recorded so far, I think some of our commands are on it and they are working on these cases and all I can say is to urge our people (journalists), we always believe that it’s when we publish (reports) that we are fighting it. I don’t want to believe that it’s every case that you must publish even when you publish you need to follow up so that you can have justice in that matter.
“I think we need to learn more. I think in the next election there will be constant training and retraining for all of us. There will be at least a forum for all of us where journalists, security agencies will have a joint forum to be coordinated by INEC itself so that all of us will be on the same page.”
However, he said journalists need to be abreast of relevant laws to avoid running into problems while discharging their responsibilities…
