EDITORIAL: Abuja is Becoming Nigeria’s Hotspot for Attacks on Press Freedom

The assault allegation involving Pinnacle Daily editor, Sunday Michael Ogwu, is the latest in a series of cases involving journalists and security agencies in Nigeria’s capital, where separate monitoring has recorded a concentration of attacks, arrests and harassment.

On Wednesday evening in Lugbe, Abuja, Mr Ogwu was documenting a demolition operation when, according to his account, the exercise took an unexpected turn.

He said he began recording what he described as a joint operation involving police officers and members of a vigilante group. He said officers seized his phone, ordered him to be beaten and later asked him to leave.

Ogwu said he saw “Lugbe Police Station” written on one of the vehicles used in the operation and repeatedly asked the officers to identify the leader of the exercise. He said they refused.

The FCT Police Command disputed his account of the officers’ affiliation, saying the personnel involved could not have been attached to the command and that the police did not get involved in demolitions.

The command claimed it directed inquiries about the exercise to the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), while asking Ogwu to contact it personally and file a formal report.

Two days later, the dispute had shifted from what happened in Lugbe to how the police were handling the allegation.

The command said it had invited Ogwu several times to make a statement and present evidence as part of an investigation ordered by the Commissioner of Police.

However, Mr Ogwu disputed that account, saying he had not received a formal invitation before the police publicly accused him of declining to cooperate.

He said he had, in fact, initiated contact with the command and was prepared to meet with officials after consulting his lawyers.

The competing accounts have yet to resolve the central questions surrounding the Lugbe incident, but the case has acquired a significance beyond the events of one evening.

Ogwu’s experience is unfolding in a capital that, according to press-freedom monitoring, has recorded more documented cases involving journalists than any other location in Nigeria in a major three-year dataset.

Abuja’s numbers stand out

In May, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) published a three-year research covering the first three years of President Bola Tinubu’s administration. CPJ said it had documented the arrests, attacks and harassment of 91 journalists since Tinubu’s inauguration in May 2023. Its research covered 13 states and the Federal Capital Territory.

The Abuja figure stands out.

An analysis of the CPJ data by BUSINESS METRICS found that 30 journalists had been targeted in the FCT, the highest number recorded in any location in the dataset. The cases comprised six arrests, 22 physical attacks and three instances of harassment.

BUSINESS METRICS read these figures with caution since they represent documented cases identified by CPJ and do not establish that Abuja has the highest rate of attacks against journalists as there is no comparable denominator showing the number of journalists working in each state.

However, the fact that the FCT alone accounts for approximately 33% of all the cases in a group comprising 13 other states makes the seat of power a clear hotspot for violence against journalists and threats to press freedom in the country over the last three years.

Beyond the FCT, Kano State recorded 13 journalists targeted, followed by Lagos with 11 and Borno with nine. Kwara and Bayelsa states each recorded seven, while Delta State recorded five. Bauchi and Edo states each recorded three targeted journalists. Katsina, Kaduna, Ekiti, Ogun and Rivers states each recorded one journalist targeted in attacks.

The figures show that the incidents were not confined to Abuja. Kano and Lagos also recorded significant numbers, while Borno, Kwara, Bayelsa and Delta accounted for several cases. Yet, even among these states, none approached the concentration recorded in the Federal Capital Territory.

When reporting brings journalists into confrontation with the state

In February 2024, Kasarahchi Aniagolu, a journalist with THE WHISTLER was reporting on a police raid in Abuja when, according to CPJ’s account, she was detained and assaulted by police officers.

CPJ reported that officers slapped Aniagolu, struck her hand with a gun, took her phone and camera and used her facial recognition to unlock the phone before deleting photographs and videos. She was held for about eight hours.

The case did not end with the initial allegation.

In July 2026, an FCT High Court awarded Aniagolu N12 million in damages against the Nigeria Police Force over her arrest and detention. Premium Times reported that the court found violations of her fundamental rights in the incident.

That judgment is significant because it moves the case beyond competing accounts between a journalist and security personnel. A court has now issued a finding against the police in relation to the incident.

Then there was the August 2024 #EndBadGovernance protest.

CPJ documented at least 56 journalists who were assaulted or harassed by security forces or unidentified citizens while covering the demonstrations across Nigeria.

In Abuja, the incidents included the arrest of DAILY INDEPENDENT photojournalist Jide Oyekunle and Punch photojournalist Kayode Jaiyeola on August 1. Police also threw tear gas at journalists covering the demonstrations that day.

On August 3, CPJ said masked security forces fired bullets and tear gas in the direction of 18 journalists covering the protests at Abuja’s National Stadium. Several journalists were injured while trying to escape.

Oyekunle’s case also eventually reached court.

In June 2026, the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice awarded him N10 million in damages and found the Federal Republic of Nigeria liable for violations arising from his treatment while covering the 2024 protests in Abuja. The court’s own record says the award concerned rights violations during the protest and required Nigeria to report on measures taken to implement the judgment.

Two Abuja cases, therefore, have produced monetary judgments against Nigerian authorities in 2026 after incidents involving journalists and security personnel.

That does not establish that every reported attack in Abuja follows the same pattern. But it does show that allegations of abuse have sometimes moved beyond media reports and resulted in judicial findings.

The problem did not stop with the 2024 protests as the cases recorded in Abuja have continued into 2026.

In July, CPJ reported the forcible disappearance of SECRET REPORTERS journalist Stanley Ugagbe after he was seized by two armed men in Abuja. CPJ said Ugagbe was later released from the National Cybercrime Centre and subsequently remanded in prison pending trial over cybercrime and defamation charges arising from the publication of an investigation concerning allegations against Emem Usoro, the Deputy Governor of Operations at Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Within the space of roughly two years, Abuja has seen journalists assaulted or detained while covering police operations, journalists attacked while covering protests, a journalist subjected to a court-confirmed rights violation, another awarded damages by a regional court, and further cases involving detention and criminal proceedings.

More data on media violation

Media Rights Agenda’s 2025 Annual Report on Freedom of Expression in Nigeria documented 86 incidents involving journalists, media houses and citizens during the year. MRA recorded 14 of those incidents in the Federal Capital Territory and 16 in Lagos.

MRA also attributed 41 of its 86 documented incidents to the Nigeria Police Force (NPF).

However, the important distinction is that MRA’s dataset covers attacks against journalists, media houses and citizens, so its figures cannot be directly compared with CPJ’s journalist-specific dataset or added to it.

MRA nevertheless described the overall environment as one marked by weak accountability and impunity, saying none of the 86 cases it documented in 2025 resulted in a successful investigation or prosecution.

That is MRA’s assessment of its own dataset, rather than proof that no journalist-related case in Nigeria was investigated or prosecuted during the year.

Notwithstanding the distinction arising from the two organisations measuring different things, both datasets point to a press-freedom problem in which Abuja features prominently.

Why Abuja?

The concentration of cases raises the difficult question of why does the nation’s capital repeatedly feature in incidents involving journalists?

Part of the answer may be structural.

Abuja is where journalists routinely cover the presidency, National Assembly, ministries, security agencies, courts, political parties, protests and other institutions of federal power. Reporting in the capital therefore frequently puts journalists in direct contact with the agencies whose activities they are scrutinising.

That creates more opportunities for confrontation.

However, that explanation alone does not answer the more troubling question of whether public officials and security agencies in the capital have become sufficiently accustomed to treating journalists as an obstacle rather than as observers performing a legitimate public function.

The available data does not allow that conclusion to be stated as an established fact. What it does show is a recurring series of documented confrontations.

In 2024, journalists were arrested and attacked while covering protests. In another case, a reporter’s phone was seized and material deleted while she was reporting on a police operation. In 2026, a court found against the police over that incident. Another court found Nigeria liable in the Oyekunle case.

And now, in Lugbe, another journalist says he was assaulted while documenting a public operation.

Phone keeps appearing

There is another detail running through several of these cases that deserves attention; and that is the journalist’s recording device.

Aniagolu’s phone and camera were seized and material was deleted, according to CPJ’s account. Oyekunle’s property was seized in the incident for which the ECOWAS Court awarded damages. CPJ reported that police later examined Stanley Ugagbe’s phone and laptop following his detention.

Ogwu says his phone was seized and damaged during the Lugbe incident. He later said he had to provide an alternative contact because his main phone was damaged.

The phone is not merely a piece of personal property in these encounters. For a journalist documenting an operation, it can contain the photographs, videos, audio recordings and communications that establish what happened.

Its seizure or destruction can therefore affect not only the journalist but the evidence surrounding the event itself. That makes the protection of journalists’ devices part of the wider press-freedom question.

What Happens after the Allegation?

This may ultimately be the most important question raised by the Ogwu case. The FCT Police Command says it has ordered an investigation and that any officer found culpable will be sanctioned.

That investigation now has to establish basic facts to unravel who the officers were, whether they were attached to Lugbe Police Division or another agency, what role they played in the demolition operation, whether Ogwu was assaulted and what happened to his phone.

It also has to resolve the dispute over whether the journalist was properly invited to make a statement.

Those questions are important not only because of what happened to one editor, but because the credibility of the investigation will shape the answer to a larger question facing Nigerian authorities.