Nigeria: State Security Service raid weekly and attack newspaper vendors

Reporters Without Borders has voiced outrage at the "perverse methods of intimidation" used against the Lagos-based weekly The Exclusive by Nigeria's intelligence agency, the State Security Service (SSS), which carried out a heavy-handed raid on its offices on 19 August and then used threats to deter street vendors from selling its latest issue. "President Olusegun Obasanjo can pose as an African peace-maker as much as he likes, but Nigeria continues to be one of the continent's most violent countries for journalists," the press freedom organisation said. "His intelligence service has no scruples about punishing dissident voices and using perverse methods of intimidation if necessary."