Daniel Ojukwu is an investigative journalist in Nigeria.
Basis for Investigative Journalism
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Basis for Investigative Journalism
Daniel Ojukwu is an investigative journalist in Nigeria.
Basis for Investigative Journalism
LAGOS, Nigeria — An investigative journalist in Nigeria has been arrested through police and held at no cost for over every week, resulting in rising fears for his protection. His case has additionally ignited complaint from media and advocacy teams at the worsening local weather for impartial journalism in Africa’s maximum populous nation. Police arrested 26-year-old Daniel Ojukwu on Might 1 in Lagos. He was once reported lacking tomorrow through his colleagues at Nigeria’s Basis for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), after family and friends have been not able to achieve him through telephone. FIJ employed non-public investigators who discovered his final location prior to he was once arrested, main newshounds to call for solutions from Nigerian police.
Police handiest showed his detention on Sunday, days after shifting him to the capital, Abuja, the place he has been accused of violating the Cybercrime Act, a arguable legislation that provides the Nigerian govt huge powers to keep watch over perceived on-line offenses. It’s been criticized through Amnesty World as a way of punishing newshounds and undermining the precise to freedom of speech. The detention follows investigative reporting through Ojukwu and co-workers revealing corruption implicating senior Nigerian officers. A presidency reliable, Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, who was once tasked with reaching the United Countries’ Sustainable Construction Targets, allegedly ordered the switch of greater than $106,000 of presidency finances to a cafe within the capital, in keeping with Ojukwu’s reporting. The finances have been budgeted for the introduction of a faculty development and finding out heart however, in keeping with Ojukwu’s document, the amenities have been by no means created. Orelope-Adefulire has now not spoke back to the allegations. Fisayo Soyombo, the founding father of FIJ, described Ojuwku’s arrest — two days prior to the Might 3 Global Press Freedom Day — as an “abduction.” “I take advantage of this phrase very in moderation as a result of they by no means invited him to deal with issues in regards to the tale in query. As an alternative, they tracked him, picked him and held him,” he mentioned. As of Wednesday, every week after he was once taken, Nigerian police had now not interrogated Ojukwu at the tale he produced, or puzzled him for any alleged crime, Soyombo mentioned, including that FIJ made touch with Ojukwu on Sunday through telephone. “All they have got carried out is sell off him in a mobile.” Police didn’t reply to NPR’s requests for remark.
Ojukwu’s arrest was once an additional signal of the “terrible” local weather for impartial journalism in Nigeria. “If a journalist can also be kidnapped as a result of that tale, I feel somebody doubtful can see obviously that Nigeria lately runs a fake democracy,” Soyombo mentioned. Soyombo may be being investigated through police for reporting in February that exposed alleged collusion between senior Nigerian police, customs officers and smugglers, within the motion of fingers and meals pieces throughout Nigeria’s border with Benin. A member of FIJ’s board was once then puzzled through Nigerian police in April, the group mentioned. On Wednesday, the Committee to Give protection to Reporters (CPJ) launched a observation urging government in Nigeria to “in an instant unlock journalist Daniel Ojukwu and prevent intimidating and arresting individuals of the click who examine the federal government’s spending of public finances.” “The Nigerian police’s investigation into any such respected media outlet demonstrates the alarming extent to which they’re prepared to visit silence newshounds in quest of to show crime,” mentioned Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program.
Ojukwu’s case is the most recent in a rising choice of arrests of newshounds during the last 12 months below President Bola Tinubu’s govt. Final month, every other journalist, Segun Olatunji, was once arrested and detained for 2 weeks through the Nigerian army, following a document revealing alleged corruption through the president’s leader of group of workers, Femi Gbajabiamila. He was once launched final week at no cost and advised native media he have been stripped, blindfolded and detained through officials. More than a few media teams in Nigeria, together with the Nigerian Union of Reporters, launched a joint observation urging the federal government to prevent the use of “repressive techniques.” Nigeria is one in every of West Africa’s most threatening and tough international locations for newshounds, who’re steadily monitored, attacked and arbitrarily arrested, in keeping with Journalists With out Borders, which ranked Nigeria 112th out of 180 international locations for press freedom.
