NIGERIAN MILITARY WAGE WAR ON NEWSPAPERS!!!

(Culled from Punch).
Men of the Nigerian Army on Saturday continued with the seizure of prominent Nigerian newspapers in what appeared to be a sustained assault on the media.

Our correspondent reports that apart from seizing newspaper vans on the roads, the military men barricaded the routes of and raided the newspaper distribution centres in Abuja.

This was said to have hampered the distribution of newspapers in the Federal Capital Territory.

Operatives of the military and Directorate of State Security Services had on Friday seized copies of Leadership, Daily Trust, The Nation and The PUNCH in major parts of the country notably in Lagos, Abuja, Kaduna, Port Harcourt and Benin.

The Defence Headquarters had justified the seizure of the newspapers and impounding the distribution vans, saying the soldiers and SSS operatives were searching for arms among the newspapers.

The Director of Defence Information, Chris Olukolade, a major-general, had said the military was acting on an “intelligence report” that “materials with grave security implications” were being moved across the country “using the channel of newsprint-related consignments.”

Olukolade characteristically on Friday contradicted his earlier statement by feigning ignorance of the seizures, telling another correspondent, “You mean papers are being seized? No, such papers would be released after the bundles had been searched.”

The scandalous ‘military operations’ began on Friday morning when SSS operatives and soldiers intercepted and seized consignments of national newspapers being conveyed to various parts of the country in distribution vans.

At the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, copies of the newspapers were confiscated, while wrappers and cover pages of The PUNCH were damaged.

Abuja-based Leadership reported that soldiers intercepted and destroyed its newspapers copies at the Kaduna toll gate.

Vans conveying copies of The Nation were ambushed in Abuja, Benin-Warri Road, Port Harcourt, Kaduna-Kano Road and Nasarawa-Jos Road.

In Benin, the Edo State capital, soldiers stormed the Nigerian Union of Journalists Press Centre and the adjoining roads combing the vehicles plying the routes in desperate search for copies of the ‘offending’ newspapers.

• MAKE UNA GO SIDDON....'OLE IDI YIN'.
• INSTEAD MAKE UNA GO FIGHT BOKO-NONSENSE PEOPLE, UNA DEY BATTLE NEWSPAPERS.
• WHAT A WASTEFUL EXERCISE....ABI UNA GO FIT GO SEIZE COMPUTERS FOR PEOPLE HOUSES???
• I CANT BELIEVE AWA PEOPLE SOMETIMES.
• WHAT NONSENSE!!!
• NA BLOODY CIVILIANS UNA DEY FIT 4UK WITH....BOKO-PEOPLE DON KICK UNA ARSE TAYA.