Newspaper Distributors Association of Nigeria (NDAN), Rivers State Chapter has petitioned the police in the state over allegation of incessant harassment, intimidation, arrest, extortion and detention of newspaper vendors in the state.
In an eight-paragraph petition addressed to the state police commissioner and signed by NDAN’s secretary, Mr Imoh Micah, the vendors said categorically that if the alleged excesses of the police persist and the extorted sum of N10,000 was not returned to one of them (Mr Ifeanyi Ibeh), “we will not hesitate to stage a peaceful protest and involve our national body to withdraw all vendors from the streets nationwide”.
Giving reasons for the  vendors’ action, Imoh recalled that only last year, a female vendor was beaten and assaulted by a mobile police officer attached to the urban development operation team at Artillery junction and later dumped at Olu Obasanjo Police Station only to be released on the intervention of the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) in the state.
As if that was not enough, he added that the vendors claimed that their members were banned from selling newspapers at Elelenwo junction on the alleged instruction from Elelenwo Police Division even when other goods were displayed at the same junction.
According to Imoh, another female vendor was detained for three days at UST police station last year on the claim  that “the police failed to investigate properly”.
He also noted that on daily basis, vendors umbrellas were destroyed by police from Rumuokoro Division.
At Oyigbo junction, NDAN narrated that three vendors were arrested and detained for three days only to be released on payment of N20,000 per vendor with an undertaking prohibiting them from selling any newspaper at the junction anymore.
He wondered if there is any law in Rivers State forbidding newspaper sales by vendors at any location by the police, saying that vendors are law-abiding, self-employed, serving the public and being the last batch of the press.
The group noted that newspaper vendors played critical  role in information gathering and dissemination and expressed reservation that they (newspaper vendors) had been made by the police to look like criminals and being treated as such.
The NDAN’s secretary, however, appealed to police to investigate the alleged N10,000 collected from one Ifeanyi Ibeh as bail fee even when the police say that bail is free, while passionately appealing to the police to stop harassing innocent vendors and allow them do their services diligently to the public including them,  the police.

Ima-Obong Udofia & Tamunobubeleye Markson