Police arrest FIJ reporter, as clampdown on journalists intensify 

 

Weeks after the kidnap of FirstNews Editor, Segun Olatunji by agents of Defence Intelligence Agency, another journalist with the FIJ, Daniel Ojukwu has been arrested. 

Ojukwu was abducted by operatives of the Intelligence Response Team (IRT) of the Inspector General of Police on Wednesday, May 1.  

His family members later found him at the Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) in Panti after combing several police stations. 

He was relocated to the Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre (NPF-NCCC) in Abuja on Sunday and allowed for the first time to make a call, according to FIJ.

“I’m currently in Abuja; I am at the NPF-NCCC – that’s the Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre,” Ojukwu said on Sunday morning.

“I arrived this morning and I was taken into a cell. All I know is that I’m in Abuja. This is the first time I’ve been given my phone since Wednesday. They (NPF-NCCC agents) said that they were going to ask me questions. So, I’m waiting.”

According to the FIJ, Ojukwu went missing on Wednesday, May 1. His numbers were switched off, and his whereabouts unknown to colleagues, family and friends.

“On Thursday, FIJ initially made a missing person report at a police station in the area where Ojukwu was headed. However, on Friday, a private detective hired by FIJ tracked the last active location of his phones to an address in Isheri Olofin, a location FIJ now believes was where the police originally picked him up.

“Ojukwu’s family would subsequently get wind of his detention at Panti, where they were made to understand the authorities are accusing him of violating the 2015 Cybercrime Act.

“A relative who visited him told FIJ that the authorities declined to provide contact details of the Investigating Police Officer (IPO) on jurisdictional grounds as the case was beyond Lagos.

“The arresting officers are part of the IG Monitoring Team. They said when they were done arresting the other people on their watchlist in Lagos, they would transfer him and others to Abuja,” said the relative.