Detained by soldiers

By Patience Ogbo February 18, 2011

Waking up fresh from my Valentine’s night, I learnt that the Mammy Market at the Ikeja Army Cantonment had been gutted by fire with about 100 shops destroyed. I decided to go and do a story about how the traders would cope after the fire incident. That was February 15, 2011; a day I will never forget.

I strolled into the cantonment at about 11.05am and was directed to the scene of the fire. I saw some of the traders, mostly women, trying to salvage what was left of their goods. One was already telling me how she had lost her grocery store business to the fire; 13 crates of soft drinks, cash and other valuables like generator set and coolers. “What will you do now, madam?” I ask. “I will start selling pure (sachet) water by the road side until I can raise money to build my shop, or get another shop elsewhere. Please tell the army to come to our aid o. They may want to build the shops and give it out to the highest bidders or family members,” she said, and quickly posed by her wrecked shop for a photograph. “Aunty, please snap me let them see me that I am one of the traders that our shop got burnt,” I obliged her.

Not too far from this woman was another food vendor, popularly called Iya Calabar. She was gazing woefully at the ruins that was now her shop. I went to her, and there and then two men walked up to me and told me to follow them to their office. “Who are you?,” I asked the two officers in mufti. They said: “We are army, just follow us and explain yourself in our office.” When we got to their office, a military post, I saw officers torturing two young boys they said had stolen handsets at the market. “Madam who are you? Why are you snapping [photographs] and talking to people in the market?,” one of them asked. I introduced myself and showed them my identity card.

One of the soldiers called a number on his mobile phone, and another officer who identified himself as the commander of the cantonment spoke with me on the phone, saying I would be made to wait for him. He added that I was not authorised to take pictures or write any story about the army and that I would be held until he came back from an event. The other soldiers seized my camera, put me in a vehicle, and we drove to the military police station in the cantonment. The soldiers in the vehicle with me collected my phones.

The officer in charge of the station ordered that I should write a statement, but I refused. They later took me to the commander‘s office where I was made to wait indefinitely. The commander came back at about 3.45pm and I was ushered into his office. “Who are you? I am Brig. Gen. S.N. Muazu,” he said. I learnt later he is the commander of the 9 Brigade, Ikeja Cantonment. I introduced myself and he went on to tell me how unethical and unprofessional I had been. “I am ordering you to apologise for trespassing and for not going through the normal process to get your story,” he said. “This is a restricted area and you came in without permission, so you must apologise or you will be prosecuted.”

I said: “Telling me to apologise is like saying I should deny that I am a journalist. I can’t do that sir, I cannot apologise sir.” “Then we will prosecute you,” he said angrily. I reluctantly said “I am sorry.” “You must put it in writing,” he replied. “You should be grateful that it is not the police. They would have planted one exhibit on you and charged you for one offence. Do you think you have a good lawyer in your office that will bail you? You will just rot in the cell; your colleagues will write and write but nothing will come out of it.” “If you want me to apologise in writing then I am doing it under duress,” I said. “I don’t care,” he responded. “It’s either you write it or you will be sorry. By the time we handle you, you will write two fullscap sheets without knowing it. If you like yourself just write and sign.”

I ended up writing an apology letter to him. “You are missing the point you must write that you were not authorised to do the story,” he insisted. I wrote the letter more than five times before he finally accepted it. When I finished writing the letter, he ordered that I should be released, but the soldiers made sure that they deleted all the pictures and recording I had on the fire incident. They handed me my phones and camera. “Sign here and book out your property,” one of them said. But when I looked at my Blackberry phone, my scroll key was missing. I had more than 20 missed calls. I walked out of the station at about 4.30pm.