Posted by Samuel on Sun 26th Jan, 2025 - tori.ng
The incident occurred after the journalist asked for a speech made by the representative of the Chief of Army Staff (COAS).
On Saturday, a Nigerian Army Captain was accused of confiscating the phone of a Vanguard journalist during the 2024 Combined West African Social Activities (WASA), an annual event held at the Nigerian Army Barracks in Yaba, Lagos State.
The incident occurred after the journalist asked for a speech made by the representative of the Chief of Army Staff (COAS).
The Army Captain, whose name could not be identified because he was in civilian attire, is a Military Assistant (MA) to the Commander of the Corps of Supply and Transport, Major General Adekunle Adeyinka.
The captain withheld the journalist’s phone for almost 40 minutes, despite the intervention of the Vice President of the Lagos State Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) and Force Editor at The Sun Newspaper, Mr. Philip Nwosu, who was present at the event.
According to the journalist, the event was nearing its conclusion, but his report for the day would be incomplete without the COAS representative’s speech. He decided to ask the Army Captain, who he perceived might have access to the speech, as he had been seen interacting with both the COAS representative and Major General Adekunle Adeyinka during the event.
When the journalist approached him to ask, the captain seized his phone after asking for the journalist’s identification card.
The journalist said: “I went to meet him and asked, besides that I was well dressed professionally, not that I’m shabby or unofficial. And he was in civilian attire. Then I asked how I could get the COAS speech. He looked at me and told me to identify myself. I told him I am a Vanguard journalist. He asked for my identification card, I told him I don’t regularly move around with it, because my beat most times don’t require me to. He asked me again to show him my invitation to this event, which I showed him on my WhatsApp chat with the officer who invited me. I even called the officer’s name to him and explained that I have other speeches made by different Major Generals at the event to prove to him that I’m a journalist.
“In the process of showing him my WhatsApp chat and some of the media groups I belong to, he took my phone and refused to give it back. At this point, a Major was already delivering his closing remarks, and I also needed to record it. But despite that, he denied me my phone, asking me to call whoever I am with.
“I told him he should please give my phone to me so I don’t miss the recording of the closing remarks, but he insisted on holding my phone until I called someone to him. At that point, Mr. Philip Nwosu, Lagos NUJ Vice President, was close by. I therefore called him, and immediately he came. He identified himself with me, telling the officer that I’m a journalist. Mr. Nwosu went ahead to show him on his phone the same invitation I had shown. Despite that, he insisted he wouldn’t give me the phone.
“Mr. Nwosu, who has spent 29 years in the force beat, tried to ask him who he is and went further to name top officers to him, but he kept his ears closed to it.
“An argument erupted, and this raised the attention of superior officers, who came quickly and calmed the tension, after which the journalist phone was given”.
The embarrassment, however, led to Mr. Nwosu and the Vanguard journalist walking out of the event, as the captain continued to say from a distance that they were lucky for the intervention of his superiors; otherwise, the phone would not have been given.