Protect Journalists, Tackle Insecurity: Nigerian Media Groups Urge Leaders

In a joint appeal marking World Press Freedom Day, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) and the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) have sounded a critical alarm, calling upon President Bola Tinubu and state governors to urgently prioritize the protection of journalists and tackle the pervasive insecurity plaguing the nation. This call is not merely a plea for safety; it is a demand for the preservation of democratic tenets, recognizing that a free and independent media is the bedrock of accountability and public trust.

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Protecting journalists and safeguarding information integrity are central drivers of peace, security, and democratic stability.

The statement powerfully articulates that safeguarding journalists and ensuring information integrity are not peripheral issues but central drivers of peace and security. It argues that any effective strategy for Nigeria's recovery and stability must inherently include robust support for a free, independent, and pluralistic media. The groups pointedly linked the escalating insecurity, characterized by killings, abductions, and widespread human rights abuses, particularly in northern Nigeria, to systemic failures in governance. These failures, they contend, include a lack of prevention, inadequate investigation, and a persistent impunity for perpetrators, leaving victims without justice or effective remedies.

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Any credible peace, recovery, or security strategy in Nigeria must integrate support for free, independent, and pluralistic media alongside humanitarian, institutional, and economic responses.

The Nigerian authorities, SERAP and NGE stressed, are bound by constitutional and international obligations to uphold press freedom and combat insecurity. The appeal specifically targets the Tinubu administration and the FCT Minister, urging them to exercise due diligence in preventing, investigating, and remedying human rights violations. The UNESCO theme for World Press Freedom Day 2026, 'Shaping a Future of Peace,' serves as a poignant backdrop to this call, underscoring the indispensable role of the media in fostering a peaceful and just society. The message is clear: without a protected press, Nigeria's aspirations for peace, security, and democratic governance remain critically endangered.

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Serious concerns about the scale and persistence of killings, abductions, sexual violence, forced displacement, and destruction of property across several parts of northern Nigeria.