View Reported Incidence.

Benjamin Anaja

Gender: Male
Radio Journalist
  • Organisation: The Guild news website
  • Case: Attack
  • Culprit: police officer
  • Country: Nigeria
  • City: Lagos

Anaja said that the officers were attempting to clear a group of traders from the roadside when a fight broke out between the officers and a group of unidentified people at the Meiran bus stop, a commercial hub in the city’s Alimosho council area. He said he filmed the confrontation as part of a documentary on transportation problems in Lagos. Shortly after he began filming, an officer approached Anaja and began beating him while asking if he was a journalist, Anaja told CPJ. After he identified himself as a reporter, the officer pulled Anaja by the waist to meet other officers near their vehicle, and eight other officers joined in beating him with their hands, boots, and wooden sticks, while demanding his phone and identity card, the journalist said. Anaja told CPJ that one of the officers held his penis, squeezed it hard, and used it to drag him into the officers’ van. The officers tried unsuccessfully to confiscate his phone, and briefly seized his press ID, which they damaged and then returned, he said. Once inside the van, an officer pinned Anaja to the floor as other officers continued to beat him; some of the officers tried to smash bottles on Anaja’s head, but were stopped by one of their colleagues, the journalist told CPJ.

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