The State Security Service (SSS) has
again gone after the press, last Monday in
Abeokuta arresting and harassing Segun
Olatunji, the Ogun State Correspondent of
The Punch.
Mr. Olatunji went to the offices of the SSS
at the invitation of Joseph Okpo, its state
Director, who had sent an invitation to
him though Kehinde Akinyemi, the
Chairman of the Ogun State Council of the
Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
SaharaReporters has learned that Olatunji
was then subjected to a full day of
exhausting and humiliating questioning
and harassment by Okpo himself, who
then tagged with his deputy, Yau Umar, to
continue the process, before he was
handed over to their Principal Staff Officer
(PSO).
The men, who said their activities had to
do with issues “bordering on national
security,” questioned the correspondent
about his academic qualifications and
work experience. They then began an
interrogation about a story in the Sunday
Punch which contained allegations by two
former government insiders against
former President Olusegun Obasanjo
about his maintenance in place of a killer
squad that was previously used by
General Sani Abacha.
Last month, the two men, Segun Seriki
and Richard Odusanya, sent a petition to
the National Assembly in which they
called for an investigation of a slew of
allegaitons they said they were ready to
substantiate.
On April 20, the two men also appeared
on SaharaTV and spoke, among others,
about issues of corruption and several
high profile killings during the Obasanjo
presidency, including those of former
Attorney General and Minister of Justice,
Chief Bola Ige and Chief Harry Marshal,
which were never solved by the police.
Nonetheless, Mr. Okpo, upset that Olatunji
had failed to give him “straight answers”
to his questions, instructed his faithful
deputy to extract a statement from the
reporter, who was then forced to open his
email on a computer to enable the SSS
identify some of the reports he has written
in the past.
He was also forced to fill out forms and to
write further statements, following which
he was handed over to the Principal Staff
Officer, and then fingerprinted and
photographed in a variety of postures.
As the night fell, the reporter was
returned to the office of the Deputy
Director, made to write another
statement, and then thrown into an
unlighted room on the ground floor of the
building. The room contained two men in
handcuffs.
The matter took a different turn thereafter
when Mr. Akinyemi and the chairman of
the NUJ, Wole Sokunbi came in and met
with Mr. Okpo in his office. When Mr.
Olatunji was brought into the room, the
powerful SSS boss asked if Olatunji, who
had not been charged to court, would like
the duo to “bail” him.
He was eventually released, but not until
he had been warned against his
“uncooperative and arrogant demeanour,”
and asked to return again to the SSS
office at 11.00am the following morning.
It is unclear at this point whether Mr.
Okpo, Mr. Yau Umar, or their PSO have
solved the security mystery they are
chasing, or whether they have yet invited
Chief Obasanjo to their office.
Calls to their office by SaharaReporters
were not returned.

Saharareporters.com

The truth still remains: there is no president who doesn't service a killer squad! Even jonathan that was tryin to cool his heads at the start of his tenure is all-eyes-blazing now!
Na today?

Anyway, as the matter involved OBJ, it is dead on arrival! Not that he is above d law, but u knw na....

What is exhausting and humiliating about be questioned by security agencies?

When journalist sit in the comfort of their office to manufacture news with security implications, they still expect that they should be treated as "VIP's"