Nigerian musician Davido should hold accountable those responsible for the assault of Adekanmbi Damilola, CEO of the online entertainment news platform NoStoryTV,
by a member of his private security team and ensure journalists can
safely cover his events, the Committee to Protect Journalists said
today.
Damilola, who also reports for the Lagos-based NoStoryTV,
told CPJ he was punched in the face by a security guard working for
Davido Adeleke, better known by his stage name Davido, outside the
artists' tent during a July 21 concert in Nigeria's southwestern Ibadan
city.
The
journalist told CPJ that he approached Davido's security guard to
request an interview with the musician and the guard told Damilola that
cameras, which Damilola had with him, were not allowed inside. Damilola
said he dropped off the camera and returned to request access again. The
bouncer then punched Damilola, according to the journalist and Oduwole
Tobi, the editor-in-chief of entertainment news outlet Cold Magazine who goes by "Brown."
Tobi, who said he saw the altercation and wrote about
it on Instagram, told CPJ that the security guard punched Damilola on
the ground for two or three minutes. CPJ was unable to verify
independently the duration of the assault on Damilola.
Video footage later
appeared on an Instagram account called instablog9ja that showed
Damilola lying disheveled on his back wearing a NoStoryTV shirt with
blood on his face. Tobi denied posting the video and Damilola also told
CPJ he did not know who posted the video.
The
journalist said he remembers being punched and then woke up in Ibadan's
University College Hospital. Damilola told CPJ on July 25 that his eyes
were swollen after being punched and he still had pain in his teeth and
gums.
The
journalist said he did not file a police report about the incident
because he does not live in Ibadan and left after he was released from
the hospital.
"Violence
against journalists under any circumstances is totally unacceptable,"
Angela Quintal, CPJ's Africa program coordinator, said from Harare.
"Davido and his team must act to ensure press covering their events are
able to do their work without fear of assault."
Damilola's
drone, which he was carrying at the time of the attack and which had a
camera attached to it, was also damaged in the altercation, according to
the journalist and a July 24 post on NoStoryTV's Instagram.
Damilola
said that prior to Davido's arrival he had already conducted several
interviews with other artists in the musicians' tent, also referred to
as the green room, and that he and four other NoStoryTV team members
were given access tags that allowed them into the artists' area.
Rotimi
Ige Roy, media director of Ibadan Countdown, the entertainment company
that helped organize and host the Ibadan concert, told CPJ on July 26
and 27 that the tags given to the NoStoryTV team only granted them
official access to the VIP area and the stage, not the green room, and
denied that Damilola's equipment was damaged.
Roy
said that he did not see the altercation directly, though "people
around him" said that Davido's guard punched Damilola in response to a
first punch thrown by the journalist and that the guard did not
continuously punch the journalist. The media director also said that he
transported Damilola to the hospital.
A statement from Ibadan Countdown, published by the privately owned Nigerian newspaper Punch on
July 24, denied claims that a reporter was "manhandled by security
operatives" at the concert and claimed the reports of violence were a
"calculated attempt to bring the event into disrepute."
CPJ's efforts to contact Davido and members of his team-- including emails to the addresses listed on his website's contact page, direct messages to Davido Adeleke's personal Instagram account and the Instagram account of sirbanko, president of the Davido Music Worldwide (DMW) company, and calls to the number listed on the website of Davido's record label, HKN Music-- received no response.
When News Breaks Out, We Break In. (The 2014 Bloggies Finalist)
