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Akinwande Soji-Ojo
Men of the Nigeria Police Force, on Friday, raided the headquarters of Peoples Gazette newspaper in Abuja, and arrested one of its editors and four other staff members.
It was gathered that an assistant managing editor, John Adenekan, was taken away around 12:35pm by five armed police officers who broke into the newspaper’s head office, opposite NNPC Quarters, in Utako.
The officers returned to the office to arrest four other staff, identified as Ameedat Adeyemi, Grace Oke, Sammy Ogbu and Justina Tayani.
The officers declined to state the reason for their arrest, but demanded to see Managing Editor, Samuel Ogundipe, and a Reporter, Adefemola Akintade.
Both Ogundipe and Akintade were not around during the raid, prompting the officers to arrest Adenekan in their stead.
It was learnt that the officers later told Adenekan that the arrest was over the newpaper’s June 23 story, titled, ‘How ICPC raided a property belonging to former Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai (Rtd) and recovered cash and luxury items.’
ICPC had since claimed that the property does not belong to the former army chief.
Adenekan was reportedly taken to Utako Police Division.
The newspaper noted that it has faced several attacks aimed at intimidating its staff since its inception in September 2020, including the restriction of access to its website in January 2021 and the invasion of the same head office in January 2022 by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).
(Peoples Gazette)