Judge Detains Six Judiciary Reporters for Covering Proceedings

•Directs orderly to delete pictures from journalists phone

Alex Enumah

Justice Chizoba Orji of a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), yesterday, detained six journalists for over two hours for covering court proceedings in her court without first getting her permission to do so.

Accordingly, she ordered her police orderly to seize and delete pictures and videos in a phone belonging to a Judiciary Correspondent attached to the Africa Independent Television (AIT), Ms. Wumi Obabori.

After the directive was carried out, Justice Orji subsequently ordered all journalists inside her court to leave, adding that they could only cover proceedings in her court after obtaining her permission.

The affected journalists which included Mr. Godwin Tsa of the Sun Newspaper, Ikechukwu Nnochiri of Vanguard Newspaper, Austin Okezie of Raypower Fm, Kunle Olasanmi of Leadership Newspaper and a veteran journalist, Mr. Charles Ozoemena, had been accredited to cover court proceedings in the FCT and were members of the Abuja chapter of the National Association of Judiciary Correspondent (NAJUC).

As tradition, court journalists takes pictures and videos of the courtroom when the judge is not sitting.

However, trouble started after the judge stood down a matter and entered her chambers to prepare a ruling.

Immediately the court proceeding was suspended, the reporter from AIT attempted to record videos for her story, when a female Registrar of the court pounced on her, insisting that journalists have no right to cover the court.

Frantic effort by the reporter to explain to the Registrar that journalists could take “cut-aways” (visuals) and pictures once the court was not in session, yielded no result, as the court official immediately summoned a police officer attached to the judge to arrest the reporter.

The policeman, Mr Gusar Dauda, who claimed that he had the authority of the judge, swiftly locked the main gate to the courtroom, pulled his gun and ordered all the journalists to surrender their phones.

Despite the intervention of lawyers and litigants, the police officer and court officials stood their ground that no journalist would leave the courtroom without complying with the order.

After a scuffle that lasted over one hour, Justice Orji re-entered the courtroom and summoned the AIT reporter to step forward.

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

“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,” Wumi of AIT responded.

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

At that juncture, other journalists in the courtroom stood up and took turns to identify themselves.

“I don’t want to hear from any of you. Now, where is the device you used to take the pictures and videos?”, Justice Orji queried the AIT reporter.

She, thereafter, ordered her orderly to delete all the pictures and videos in the phone, after which she told the court official to unlock the gate and walk all the journalists out of the courtroom.