(MFWA/IFEX) – On 9 July 2004, police in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, southern Nigeria, arrested and detained two news magazine reporters, Lawson Heyford of “The Source” and Okafor Ofiebor of “The News”. The journalists were arrested for their alleged association with a man identified as Pastor Joe Alatoru, who had accused two senior police officers […]
(MFWA/IFEX) – On 9 July 2004, police in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, southern Nigeria, arrested and detained two news magazine reporters, Lawson Heyford of “The Source” and Okafor Ofiebor of “The News”.
The journalists were arrested for their alleged association with a man identified as Pastor Joe Alatoru, who had accused two senior police officers of taking bribes from him. Alatoru was also arrested by police.
According to MFWA-Nigeria, at about 1:00 p.m. (local time), police officers from the Rivers State Security Agency’s Special Operations Squad (SOS), led by a man identified only as “Kenneth”, arrested the three individuals as they were leaving the offices of the Shell Petroleum Development Company.
Ofiebor told MFWA-Nigeria that the arrest followed the journalist’s reports on the allegation of bribery and coercion that Alatoru, in a petition forwarded to the Inspector General of Police, is pressing against the two police officers.
The police first took the three men to the office of an anti-crime unit called “Operation Fire-for-Fire”, and later took them to the police’s Zonal Headquarters.
One of the police officers told the journalists they were instructed to arrest and detain Alatoru in Port Harcourt. A special team from the capital, Abuja, would then come to transfer him to the Federal Capital Territory to face trial for trying to frame the two police officers.
Police released Ofiebor after eight hours in detention, instructing him to report back the following day. Heyford was released on 11 July. He told MFWA-Nigeria that Alatoru’s whereabouts were still unknown..
MFWA condemns this abuse of power by the Rivers State police authority and the frequent abuses of media freedom that the state security forces employ whenever a news report seems to indict them.
