A judge presiding over a libel case in Uyo, capital of Akwa Ibom State, has detained a journalist covering the proceedings and also jailed for one month the lawyer representing the defendant.
On July 27, 2022, Justice Ekaete Obot ordered police officers to escort Saviour Imukudo, a reporter from THE PREMIUM TIMES out of the courtroom. The judge also told the officers to search him and seize his phone. The journalist was detained for about five hours, first, in an office within the judiciary complex before being transferred to a nearby police station, where he was made to write a statement. The judge later explained to an Assistant Managing Editor of the online newspaper, Cletus Ukpong, that the reporter was recording the proceedings without her permission. The recordings were deleted when Imukudo was in detention at the court premises, but the phone was returned to him upon his release.
Justice Obot in previous proceedings had ordered court officials to temporarily seize phones from reporters in the middle of proceedings to prevent any recordings.
“Protocols for covering court proceedings must be spelt out clearly by the presiding judge or authorised court officials at the onset. Without any such prior notice, it should be assumed that journalists can record court proceedings, as they are public events. We, therefore, deplore the detention and harassment of journalist Imukudo and urge the court authorities to ensure such arbitrary exercise of judicial power to undermine press freedom and the right to information is not repeated,” said Muheeb Saeed, head of Press Freedom at the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA).
The judge also ordered the jailing for one month of Inibehe Effiong, the defense lawyer in the case of libel brought by Akwa Ibom State governor Udom Emmanuel. The Governor filed the suit after Leo Ekpenyong, who is also a lawyer, accused him of buying an election dispute judgement from the National Assembly Election Tribunal.
Defense counsel Effiong had angered Justice Obot by raising objections to the sacking of the reporter and the deployment of heavily-armed policemen in the courtroom.
“The Chief Judge of Akwa Ibom ordered a Premium Times reporter to leave the court. I said my lord, we were thinking that since the proceeding is public, that members of the public should be allowed to observe the proceeding,” the lawyer tweeted.
Effiong then applied to the Court to send out the security officers saying he felt extremely unsafe and uncomfortable.
“The moment My Lord entered the Courtroom, His Lordship ordered the orderly attached to the court to go out and bring the armed policemen inside the courtroom. I started feeling that there was going to be trouble. After the Premium Times reporter was sent out, I raised the issue,” Effiong added in his Tweet.
In committing Effiong to prison, Justice Obot said she hoped that the lawyer would use the correctional facility to purge himself of insolence and dishonourable acts.
Relations between the defense lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, and Justice Obot has been very frosty, ever since the former managed to get the court to set aside the judge’s decision, arguing that his client was not given a fair hearing. The judge, who is also the Chief justice of the state, had awarded damages of 1.5 billion Naira (about 3 million dollars) to the plaintiff. The lawyer has since repeatedly contended that the judge is liable to be biased and even has filed a motion asking her to recuse herself from the case.
Judge Obot’s spat with Effiong is the third in the course of her handling of the case. In a previous incident, she lashed out at the lawyer. “You’re not on Channels TV. Don’t stand before me and talk nonsense,” she roared in a reprimand that raised a storm about her professionalism.
During another session on July 1, 2022, the judge at some point, shouted at the lawyer, “Please shut up! Who do you think you’re talking to?”
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has condemned the jailing of Inibehe Effiong and vowed to get the lawyer released “shortly.”
“While not going into the merits of this particular matter yet, suffice it to say that the NBA is strongly opposed to, and will continue to resist all attempts to intimidate, threaten or harass our members while properly carrying out their professional responsibilities,” a statement released on July 28, and signed by the chairman of the Uyo Branch of the NBA Olumide Akpata, partly reads.
The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) finds the jailing of lawyer Effiong quite disturbing, especially because he was defending another person’s right to freedom of expression and a journalist’s right to report on court proceedings unhindered. We condemn the apparently vindictive imprisonment of Effiong, and call on the authorities in Nigeria to ensure the immediate release of the lawyer and the transfer of the case to another judge.