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The following is from the IFEX COMMUNIQUE # 5-30  29 July 1996

 NIGERIA: "GUERRILLA JOURNALISTS" FIGHT AGAINST CLOSURES OF
INDEPENDENT PRESS; GOVERNMENT SEEKS TO SHUT DOWN RDIN

Those working for independent newspapers in Nigeria have adopted
a sort of "guerrilla journalism", reports the July issue of the
Reporters sans frontieres (RSF) "Newsletter". Like Algerian
journalists who fear for their safety, Nigerian journalists no
longer carry press credentials and "hand in their copy at a
secret location, where it is picked up later," says RSF. Contact
is limited mostly to phone and fax, with staff rarely meeting in
person. "These `guerrillas' - a minority among the 20,000
journalists in Nigeria - have become a model for others,
including those who prefer to pander to the military regime,"
says RSF. A number of journalists were arrested this spring, but
were released on bail by judges "exasperated by the growing
number of cases involving journalists," reports RSF.

The government uses four main weapons against the press, says
RSF, including putting outspoken journalists in jail. Another
method is ensuring that newspapers remain "strapped for cash, by
forbidding public bodies to buy advertising space in privately
owned newspapers." Two independent Nigerian publications were
forced to close in early June due to financial difficulty,
reports the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). "The Sunday
Magazine" ("TSM"), which had published intermittently since
publisher Chris Anyanwu was jailed in July 1995, closed down on 7
June. A week later, "A.M. News", an independent afternoon daily,
also closed. According to the CPJ, "reasons for the closures are
substantially financial. Production costs have increased
exponentially, and advertisement incomes that should cushion
production cost, at best come in trickles." Advertisers also
avoid the outspoken papers "for fear of governmental reprisal."

The third weapon against the press, which RSF terms "a more
subtle technique" pioneered by General Sani Abacha in March 1994,
"is publishing fake independent newspapers: pirate editions of
existing titles that praise the government and its policies." The
final assault is the daily harassment of the editorial staff of
independent newspapers by authorities "in the form of attacks,
threats of violence, confiscation of newspapers and harassment of
street vendors."

Last month, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa
(MISA), a Nigerian official said his government is planning to
"investigate and locate" Radio Democrat International Nigeria
(RDIN) to close it down and prosecute the broadcasters. Acting
Nigerian High Commissioner to Namibia Oyateru Akin told MISA on
19 June that RDIN is "illegal because it has not registered" with
the National Broadcasting Corporation of Nigeria as is required
by the country's laws. "This radio is clandestine and is geared
towards broadcasting anti-government propaganda," he said, adding
that he believed Nigeria's security service was "taking action to
locate and let the law of the land to uphold -- to shut down the
station and prosecute persons running it." RDIN began its
shortwave transmission on 12 June 1996, and broadcasts in Nigeria
between 7:00 hours and 7:30 hours on 11,900 kilohertz in the 25
metre band in the shortwave frequency. The radio station -- which
broadcasts information about democracy, human rights and the
environment -- was created by a Nigerian exile group called the
National Liberation Council. [Updates IFEX "Communique" #5-24.]
** ** **

The IFEX "Communique" is published weekly in English, French and
Spanish by the IFEX Clearing House, Toronto. The facility is
operated by the Canadian Committee to Protect Journalists (CCPJ)
in partnership with the member organizations of the International
Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX). Material for the
"Communique" may be submitted to the CCPJ, 490 Adelaide Street
West, Suite 205, Toronto, Ontario, M5V 1T2, CANADA; E-mail:
ifex@web.net; Tel: (1-416) 703-1638; or Fax: (1-416) 703-7034.
Editor: Kristina Stockwood. Subscriptions are available by e-mail
and surface mail. The views expressed in the "Communique" are the
responsibility of the sources to which they are attributed.

___________________________________________________
Bruce Girard
Pulsar - AMARC
Email: bgirard@pulsar.org.ec
http://www.web.net/amarc/pulsar.html
Tel: +503-2-525521    Fax: +593-542818
Av. America 3584, Casilla 17-08-8489, Quito, Ecuador