General
Codeine report: BBC journalist kicks against court subpoena
A journalist with the British Broadcasting Corporation, Adejuwon Soyinka, has urged the Federal High Court in Lagos to set aside a subpoena issued on him to appear as a witness in the case of a former employee of Emzor Pharmaceutical Industries Limited, Madubuike Chukwunonye, who is being prosecuted for selling codeine-based cough syrup without appropriate authority.
The BBC reporter, Soyinka, had in a 2018 investigative report, exposed Chukwunonye, who is now being prosecuted by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration on one count of selling codeine-based cough syrup “at a place not duly licensed or registered by the appropriate authority.”
At the instance of the prosecution, Justice Maureen Onyetenu had issued a subpoena dated February 12, 2019, on Soyinka to appear in court to testify in Chukwunonye’s trial.
But in an application filed through his lawyer, Festus Onyia, Soyinka pleaded with the court to set aside the subpoena, summoning him to appear in court.
The journalist said he had both “a legal and moral duty not to disclose the source of confidential information he obtains in the course of carrying out his investigative journalism.”
He said, “The subpoena duces tecum ad testificandum, which the prosecutor or any other party in the proceeding actuated the honourable court to issue on the 12th February 2019 or any other dates, requiring the applicant to produce the journalistic material ‘USB Stick’, in which the confidential sources of the applicant are contained derogates from the applicant’s fundamental rights as guaranteed by Section 39 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) and therefore unconstitutional.”
Soyinka added that the subpoena issued on him to produce his “USB Stick” containing his confidential sources “raises grave concern regarding a potential disclosure of the identities of the applicant’s sources and therefore violates the journalistic privileges to which the applicant is entitled.”
The journalist said the “USB Stick” which he was asked to produce in court was not his personal property but belongs to his employer, which had taken custody of it.
Soyinka said the court had a duty to prevent a breach or potential breach of his journalistic rights and privileges guaranteed by the constitution.
Meanwhile, Justice Onyetenu, on Thursday, adjourned till June 7 for further proceedings in Chukwunonye’s trial.
NAFDAC said the ex-Emzor employee violated Section 2(a) of the Counterfeit and Fake and Unwholesome Processed Foods (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act Cap C34 LFN 2004 and he was liable to be punished under Section 3 of the same Act.
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