High Court Judge arrests, detains six reporters

CHIGO IKPO, Abuja 

 

Justice Chizoba Orji of the Federal High Court, Abuja on Tuesday, ordered the arrest and detention of six judiciary reporters as she claimed they unlawfully covered her court proceedings.

 

The Judge ordered the News correspondents to delete all the pictures and visuals from her court, insisting that they had to seek permission in writing before even covering her court.

 

The entire fiasco which lasted for two hours started after the Judge stepped down a matter, suspended Court proceedings and walked into her chamber to prepare a ruling.

 

At the time of this Suspension, African Independent Television Correspondent, Ms. Wumi Obabori attempted to get Visuals and Videos for her story. As soon as she started, the female court Registrar quickly interrupted her, saying that journalists were not permitted to cover court proceedings.

 

This led to a few arguments as the reporters tried explaining to the Registrar that they are permitted to take a few extracts of the court proceedings as long as the court is not in session. Their explanations were not attended to as the Registrar went ahead to order Mr. Gusar Dauda, a police officer attached to the judge to arrest of the Reporter.

 

The Police Officer quickly shut the door of the courtroom, pulled his gun and ordered all the Judiciary Correspondents to submit their Phones.

 

Other legal practitioners in attendance tried to intervene but the court officials insisted that all Reporters must comply to the order.

 

More trouble ensued after the Judge returned to the Courtroom to resume proceedings. She summoned the reporter, asking her to step forward.

 

“Why were you taking pictures and videos in my court? Who gave you the permission to do that?”, she asked

 

“My lord, I am an accredited judiciary reporter. It is a normal practice for us to take pictures and videos when the court is not sitting, even up to the Supreme Court”, Ms Wumi replied

 

“You don’t have such right! If there is such permission, it must be in writing. Who gave you the permission? Show me the authorization?”, Justice Orji fumed.

 

Turning to the other reporters, she made them identify themselves one after another.

 

“I don’t want to hear from any of you. Now, where is the device you used to take the pictures and videos?”, The Judge asked the AIT Correspondent.

 

Justice Orji then ordered that all the pictures and videos taken in her courtroom should be deleted by the policemen and subsequently walked all the Reporters out of the Courtroom.

 

Other reporters the Judge walked out of the courtroom were Ikechukwu Nnochiri of Vanguard Newspaper,  were Mr. Godwin Tsa of the Sun Newspaper, Austin Okezie of Raypower Fm and veteran journalist, Mr. Charles Ozoemena.

 

The Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the National Association of Judiciary Correspondents (NAJUC) are expected to look into the matter to endure that such ugly incident does not occur again in future as well as find a common ground with the Judicial Heads on issues of this nature.

 

 

For a better society