As part of moves to further traumatise him, the Nigerian police, through the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) on Tuesday froze the bank account of PREMIUM TIMES reporter, Samuel Ogundipe.
Mr Ogundipe was arrested at about 300 p.m. and driven from the SARS headquarters in Abuja to the IGP Monitoring Unit at Force Headquarters where he was made to write a statement concerning the source of a recent story he wrote. He has declined giving his source as allowed by journalism ethics.
Mr Ogundipe’s salary account with Ecobank was frozen in an attempt to frustrate him. One of the police officers handling the investigation, Emmanuel Onyeneho, an inspector, was heard saying they had to freeze the account to incapacitate the reporter.
At the Force headquarters, where he was taken, a Deputy Commissioner of Police at the IGP Monitoring Unit, Sani Ahmadu, was heard directing lawyers to “rush to court” to obtain a warrant to detain Mr. Ogundipe.
The Nigerian police, through the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) on Tuesday arrested and detained Samuel Ogundipe, who covers the security sector.
Apart from Mr Ogundipe, this newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Musikilu Mojeed, and its education correspondent, Azeezat Adedigba, were also briefly detained and manhandled by the police at the SARS headquarters in Abuja.
Ms Adedigba was later released after about three hours of detention.
Mr Mojeed and Mr Ogundipe were driven from the SARS headquarters in Abuja to the IGP Monitoring Unit at Force Headquarters where Mr Ogundipe was made to write a statement.
They repeatedly asked the journalist to disclose his source for a story published by the newspaper.
The story, also published by other media, revealed a letter written by the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to Acting President Yemi Osinbajo on last week’s siege to the National Assembly by security officials.
When Mr Mojeed alerted the DCP that it was wrong compelling a journalist to disclose a source of information, the police officer became furious threatening the journalist.
“He said the police was acting within the law and that Samuel would remain detained unless he discloses those who gave him the document,” the journalist said.
Officials at the police headquarters told PREMIUM TIMES that the directive to detain the journalist came directly from the Inspector General of Police who is said to be angry at this paper’s critical reporting of his activities.
Credit: Premium Times
