chidi opara reports have decided to considerably scale down operations for security reasons. This decission was taken at its monthly(May) Editorial Board meeting which took place yesterday in Owerri, capital city of Imo state, Nigeria. chidi opara reports is an e-news publication that debutted on the 9th of December, 2007. It is "a network of Nigerian news reporters and editors being published as an Internet based non profit making public information project". It uses volunteer workforce for its operation.
throwing more light on this decission, the Publisher/Editor-In-Chief, Mr. Chidi Anthony Opara told one of our network members in Owerri that, "it has become necessary to scale down our operations because of the need to protect our network members and contacts, most of whom the security agencies I learnt, have started closing in on".
Investigations revealed that following some of our publications which the security agencies consider "very offensive", increased survillance was ordered on our operations, this increased survillance according to our usually reliable security contacts, "have started yielding good results". A contact in the State Security Service(SSS) in Owerri told us that, "our people are presently casing two of your hideouts". Incidences of security snoops on our telephone line and e-mail address have also been noticed.
"This scale down is not out of fear, it is in our opinion, the most sensible thing to do inorder to protect our volunteers and contacts", an Editorial Board member who pleaded not to be named volunteered.
"This decission", according to Mr. Opara, "will mean drastic reduction in our news coverage, we will be back again in full scale as soon as we are able to put in place a more secure method of operation, if we cannot, we will suspend publications indefinitely, protecting our network members and contacts will always be our priority".
