Published 5th Dec, 2023

By Tarinipre Francis

Marcus Fatunmole, the news editor of the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), was detained at the Eagle Square car park in Abuja on Monday.

Fatunmole was conducting an investigation into a viral video of old buses allegedly being renovated for mass transit in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) when security operatives interrupted him.

“I was taking pictures of the buses when they saw me. They said I didn’t have any authorisation to take the pictures,” he said on a phone call to FIJ.

The officers took his phone and illegally pried into its content, including his google account. And despite proving to them that he was a journalist, he was detained for six hours before his eventual release.

He was first approached by one Ibukun Akindele, an official of 360 TFA, a private security outfit, alongside security officials of the Abuja Property Development Company (APDC).

“They called the police officer from the Federal Secretariat, who helped to detain me,” he said.

Fatounmole presented his identity card and had his editor confirm to the operatives that he was indeed a journalist, but they still subjected him to hours of interrogation before his release by 2 pm.

This was the usual intimidation tactics employed by security operatives against journalists, he said. He told FIJ that the Eagle Square was open to the members of the public and that he was not trespassing.

Following the incident, the Coalition for Whistleblowers Protection and Press Freedom (CWPPF), in a joint statement with the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), requested the police and the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to conduct an investigation into the matter and bring the erring parties to book.

According to the media bodies, it became necessary to involve the NBA upon discovery that Akindele, the 360 TFA official, was a lawyer and he colluded with the police to unjustly remand Fayounmole.

They called for the urgent sensitisation of security operatives about the importance of upholding press freedom and protecting journalists in the line of duty.

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