Detention of FIJ Journalist: Police Bow to Pressure, Releases Daniel Chukwu After Abuja Protest

Following pressures from media bodies and a protest by some Civil Society Organisations in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, on Thursday, a journalist with the Foundation for Investigative Journalism, Daniel Ojukwu, who was earlier abducted by the Intelligence Response Team of the Inspector General of Police has regained his freedom.

Ojukwu regained his freedom on Friday 10th May, 2024 after spending 10 days in police custody.

FIJ disclosed this on Friday on its official website.

Ojukwu was said to have gone missing on Wednesday, May 1, his numbers were switched off and his whereabouts unknown to colleagues, family and friends.

Some twenty-four hours after he went missing, FIJ made a missing person report at police stations in the area where Ojukwu was headed.

Further, a FIJ hired detective tracked the last active location of the journalist’s phones to an address in Isheri Olofin, a location FIJ now believes was where the police originally picked him up.

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

Meanwhile, on Sunday morning, the Intelligence Response Team of the Inspector General of Police relocated him to the Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre in Abuja.

The police gave FIJ’s lawyers and negotiators led by the publisher of SaharaReporters, Omoyele Sowore; chairman of Nigeria Union of Journalists FCT Correspondent’s Chapel Jide Oyekunle; and Bukky Shonibare, chairman of FIJ’s Board of Trustees stringent bail conditions.

On Thursday, some Civil Society Organisations and journalists stormed the Force Headquarters in Abuja to demand the release of Ojukwu.

The protesters include a legal practitioner, Deji Adeyanju; a Pro-democracy activist and presidential candidate of the African Action Congress in the 2023 general elections, Sowore; amongst others.

The protesters were seen carrying banners with the inscriptions, ‘Free Daniel Ojukwu,’ ‘No to a police state,’ Journalism is not a crime,’ and ‘Stop the impunity.’

However, after civil society organisations marched to the Force Headquarters on Thursday to press for his release, the police started to soft-pedal, leading to his eventual release on Friday.

“Daniel Ojukwu’s case is one of the most egregious cases of human rights violation and misuse of the powers of the Police against journalists,” said Abimbola Ojenike, Managing Partner of Slingstone LP, FIJ’s attorneys.

“This will not go unchallenged. There’s a significant public interest in Daniel’s human rights enforcement action that goes beyond just this violation. The constitutional right to free speech is dead if journalists can no longer expose the malfeasance in government officials without fear or oppression.”

Open Television recalls that recently, another journalist, an editor with the First news online newspaper, Segun Olatunji was recently abducted by men of the Nigerian security force in a similar manner over an alleged $30 billion fraud story published about the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, a story the newspaper has had to retract and apologize leading to the resignation of the news editor involved.