EFCC’s Invasion Of The Sun

Officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) were recently reported to have invaded the corporate headquarters of The Sun Publishing Limited, publishers of The Sun Newspapers in Lagos and ordered the security guards to take them on a guided tour of the premises. While this lasted, journalists and other staff of the newspaper were prevented from entering or leaving the premises to perform their legitimate duties, including ensuring prompt circulation of the day’s publications.
Reasons adduced for the early morning siege on June 12, 2017 have, so far, been divergent. While the anti-graft agency claimed that its officials were there to simply enforce a 10-year old Interim Order of Forfeiture on the shareholdings of the newspaper outfit, The Sun  said the heavily armed EFCC operatives were rather on a vengeance and intimidating mission to settle scores over stories published by the tabloid, including the alleged ownership of certain properties by the wife of the commission’s Acting Chairman and for which the latter has just sued for N100 million.
However, the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) and Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), alongside other eminent Nigerians and groups have roundly condemned the EFCC’s action, describing it as undemocratic, uncivilised and an unnecessary attempt to intimidate the media.
The NGE particularly described the invasion as shocking, given that the action was an unwarranted siege on the company whose workers were subjected to crude intimidation, psychological and emotional trauma. It equally saw the invasion as a sad reminder of the dark years of military dictatorship and a deliberate effort to muzzle the Press. Rather than see the Fourth Estate of the Realm as an opposition, the guild advised EFCC to regard the Press as an independent and indispensable ally in the fight against corruption.
In its own statement, NPAN, while condemning the EFCC’s conduct, expressed shock that anybody could contemplate carrying out such uncivilised act, particularly on a day Nigerians were commemorating the historic day of Free Expression. According to the newspaper publishers, “We should continue to remind ourselves that this crude tactics of invasion of media houses and harassment of journalists did not work in the past, is not going to work now, and will never work. It is unknown to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
The Tide condemns this raid on a fellow newspaper and describes it as the latest attempt by an overzealous government agency to further gag the Press in Nigeria. We see the EFCC’s action as embarrassing, condemnable and unacceptable. We are equally encouraged by the prompt reactions of individuals and organisations to this Gestapo style of conducting state business, especially in this new millennium.
It is, indeed, unfortunate that at a time when all hands should be on deck to fight corruption in the country, the media is being singled out for intimidation, victimisation and harassment. We think that the commission’s action is in breach of Section 39(1) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and, if unchecked, can portray Nigeria in bad light among nations.
Therefore, the EFCC should be made to render an unreserved apology to The Sun and possibly compensate the paper for all unsold copies of that day’s editions.  Also, all government outfits that have turned out in like fashion should be called to order and advised to pursue their matters through appropriate legal channels. Their frustrations over the mostly long and windy process of the nation’s judicial system should not be taken out on the Press or any other suspects, for that matter. It is high time agencies like the EFCC allowed the Nigerian media to operate without hindrance.