Rights Activist Condemns Abduction of Five Journalists in Warri

National

A Human Right Activist, Comrade Ighorhiohwunu Aghoghowe has demanded to know the offense committed by the five Warri based journalists abducted by the Nigerian Police yesterday saying that holding them incommunicado was a gross violation of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act as it applies to Delta State and the 1999 Constitution (as amended)
The abducted journalists are Mr. Onyekachukwu Meluwe of Punch Newspapers, Mr. Matthew Omonigho, Daily Post Online, Mr Edeki Egafe of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Mr. Francis Sadhere of Business Day and Mr Christopher Odomhe, a freelance journalist. They were later released yesterday midnight.
In the statement the right activist said “Our attention has been drawn to the day light abduction of Daily Post online Journalist, Ominigho Mathew and others by men of the Nigerian Police Force.While we respect the Nigerian Police Force as a security agency in Nigeria,We hereby call on the Delta State Police Commissioner CP Hafis Inuwa to explain the whereabouts of Mathew Ominigho and his colleagues and how the Nigerian Police has been protecting the rights of the said Journalist as enshrined in Chapter IV of the 1999 constitution (as amended).
However, we demand the immediate and unconditional release of Ominigho Mathew and his colleagues if the allegation against them are not defined and unsubstantiated.
Police detectives arrested five journalists including four who are members of the Warri Correspondents Chapel of the Delta State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
It was learnt that the police operatives had stormed the Press Centre of the Warri NUJ along Gbiaye Street in Warri at about 3:45pm yesterday to abducted Omonigho for undisclosed reasons.
Following Omonigho’s arrest, the leadership of the NUJ in Warri immediately dispatched others to visit the Warri Area Command ascertain the offense for which Omonigho was arrested.
On getting there, the officers detained the three journalists who had visited the station to clarify issues relating to the arrest of the Daily Post’s reporter.
The mobile sets of the journalists were allegedly confiscated by the operatives believed to have come from the Force Headquarters and had declined to give reasons for the arrest of the journalists.

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