Nigerian Presidency resorts to Gestapo tactics as police detain four Leagechi ea
In what critics are describing as a creeping descent into dictatorship, the Nigeria Police on Monday detained four journalists of Abuja-based Leadership newspaper for refusing to name their source for a story which alleged the presidency was plotting to sabotage the merger of the leading opposition parties in the country.
The story, entitled “Outrage Trails Presidential directive on Tinubu, APC”, was based on an alleged document suggesting that President Goodluck Jonathan had given orders to his aides and appointees to harass leading opposition politicians and frustrate the ongoing merger arrangement by the Action Congress of Nigeria, the All Nigeria Peoples Party, the Congress for Progressive Change and a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance.
On April 3, presidential spokesperson, Doyin Okupe, dismissed the document, saying it was an amateurish forgery but the government did not charge the paper or the writer of the story to court.
Police spokesperson, Frank Mba, could not be reached Monday night to explain why the police suddenly descended on the newspaper and its reporters after the presidency had denied the publication.
But Leadership said Monday the four reporters were being held because they wouldn’t divulge the source of the document.
The paper said the four journalists – Chinyere Fred-Adebulugbe, Chuks Ohuegbe, Tony Amokeodo and Chibuzor Ukaibe – were summoned to the police headquarters in Abuja and then detained for failing to say who leaked the controversial document to the publication.
In what critics are describing as a creeping descent into dictatorship, the Nigeria Police on Monday detained four journalists of Abuja-based Leadership newspaper for refusing to name their source for a story which alleged the presidency was plotting to sabotage the merger of the leading opposition parties in the country.
The story, entitled “Outrage Trails Presidential directive on Tinubu, APC”, was based on an alleged document suggesting that President Goodluck Jonathan had given orders to his aides and appointees to harass leading opposition politicians and frustrate the ongoing merger arrangement by the Action Congress of Nigeria, the All Nigeria Peoples Party, the Congress for Progressive Change and a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance.
On April 3, presidential spokesperson, Doyin Okupe, dismissed the document, saying it was an amateurish forgery but the government did not charge the paper or the writer of the story to court.
Police spokesperson, Frank Mba, could not be reached Monday night to explain why the police suddenly descended on the newspaper and its reporters after the presidency had denied the publication.
But Leadership said Monday the four reporters were being held because they wouldn’t divulge the source of the document.
The paper said the four journalists – Chinyere Fred-Adebulugbe, Chuks Ohuegbe, Tony Amokeodo and Chibuzor Ukaibe – were summoned to the police headquarters in Abuja and then detained for failing to say who leaked the controversial document to the publication.
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