Lagos | Wednesday
AUTHORITIES in Lagos threatened on Tuesday to sue CNN over its coverage of recent ethnic clashes which claimed at least 100 lives in the city.
“I have asked the state attorney-general, Yemi Osibajo, to assess the extent of collateral damage suffered by the state because of the CNN report,” Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu told a news conference.
“This is with a view to enabling the state take necessary steps to seek redress in court against the CNN,” whose report on the unrest he described as “reckless.”
At least 100 people died early this month in clashes between Hausa and Yoruba communities in Mushin and Idi-Araba districts of the metropolis before soldiers moved in on February 5 to restore order alongside police.
“Let me say emphatically that Lagos State has suffered incalculable harm by the CNN report and the government is not taking it lightly at all.”
He said that following the report by the US news giant a consortium of foreign investors from Singapore and Europe cancelled a planned trip to the country last week to finalise a memorandum of understanding signed with the state government last year.
“Thus the investment worth over $1,5-billion dollars … is gravely endangered,” Tinubu said at the news conference.
Last Friday, Information Minister Jerry Gana protested in Abuja against foreign media coverage of recent unrest in Nigeria, describing it as “unbalanced, sensational and inciting.”
He singled out reports by CNN and the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) on the unrest.
“They (CNN and SABC) gave the impression that the crisis, which was caused by hooligans, was between Yoruba and Hausa, between Christians and Muslims and also between the north and the south.
“They said that the deployment of troops to keep the peace in a section of Lagos is an indication that the military have taken over in a quarter of Nigeria,” the minister said.
Lagos State Information Commissioner Dele Alake will soon travel to CNN headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, to file a formal protest on the issue, Tinubu also said. – AFP