(MRA/IFEX) – Alfred Egbegi, publisher of the weekly newspaper “Izon Link”, who was arrested by the police in Yenogoa, the Bayelsa state capital in the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria on 12 April 2006, has been released from custody, but is now facing criminal charges in court. Egbegi was released on bail in the evening of […]
(MRA/IFEX) – Alfred Egbegi, publisher of the weekly newspaper “Izon Link”, who was arrested by the police in Yenogoa, the Bayelsa state capital in the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria on 12 April 2006, has been released from custody, but is now facing criminal charges in court.
Egbegi was released on bail in the evening of 12 April, hours after his arrest and detention, but was charged by the police before a Magistrate’s Court in Yenogoa the next day, 13 April, on eight counts of “conducting himself in a manner likely to cause a breach of the peace” in “Charge Number YMC/163/C/2006: Commissioner of Police versus Alfred Egbebi”. Further hearings in the trial have been postponed to 20 April.
A printer, Olatubosun Isaac, and a secretary, Esther Bekeowei, in the newspaper’s office, who were also arrested and detained by policemen on 12 April during the hunt for Egbegi, were similarly released.
The publisher was arrested and charged over a story published in the Volume 7, Number 8 edition of the newspaper, carrying the headline “Ebebi cries out: Jonathan is stabbing me”. The story alleged political intrigue involving the state governor, Mr. Goodluck Jonathan, and his deputy, Mr. Peremobowei Ebebi, over who would govern the state after the 2007 general elections.
Shortly after his arrest on 12 April, Egbegi blamed Mr. Charles Tambou, the chief press secretary to the deputy governor, for his travails.
Tambou said in a statement issued in Yenagoa on 13 April that “The era when the press is treated with kid gloves is over, as the law will be made to take its course.”
Following the publication of a story about Egbegi’s arrest in the privately-owned national newspaper “The Punch” on 12 April, the deputy governor is alleged to have threatened violence against the newspaper’s correspondent for the state, Bisi Olaniyi.
Olaniyi said the deputy governor shouted at him: “Look, I don’t care. I will beat you up. I don’t have time to report you to anybody. I will handle the case myself and thoroughly deal with you”.
But Tambou has denied that the deputy governor made any such threat, saying the deputy governor “only talked to him (the correspondent) verbally.”
Accusing “The Punch” correspondent of not reporting the event objectively, Tambou said: “If any journalist behaves irresponsibly, we go to court. That is why we have taken that journalist to court”.
The press secretary also denied that there was any rift between the governor and his deputy, alleging that Olaniyi and Egbegi were paid by a political opponent in the state to cause trouble between Jonathan and his deputy.
