Atiku chides Tinubu over citizens’ rights violation

• DSS releases journalist, Adejuwon Soyinka, withholds passport
• Says his arrest based on request by another agency

Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has chided President Bola Tinubu’s administration for the rise in human rights’ abuses in the country. Atiku, in a statement signed by his Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, lamented that citizens were being arrested in a Gestapo manner without the knowledge of their relatives.

He alleged that Tinubu had turned against the people by allowing the Department of State Services (DSS), the police and even the military to abuse the rights of citizens without any consequence.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in the last general election said the most affected were journalists whose only crime was reporting the news and exposing government’s indiscretion. He said that the Cyber Crime Prevention Act 2015 has a tool for abducting Nigerian citizens.

“The dangerous trend of enforced disappearances has become a national embarrassment for a country which claims to be practising democracy. On May 1, 2024, Daniel Ojukwu of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism went missing and was presumed abducted by kidnappers until he was later discovered to be in police custody on the orders of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun.

“On July 23, the DSS arrested one Aliyu Sanusi in Sama Road of Sokoto, the state capital, for printing and distributing materials ahead of the #EndBadGovernance protest. Even the arrest and release of the former BBC Pidgin Editor and current West Africa Regional Editor of the Conversation, Adejuwon Soyinka, clearly shows a pattern, whose objective is to intimidate journalists for speaking the truth to this government.

“Now, the police have arrested Bristol Tamunobiefiri, who owns the PIDOM Nigeria Blog on X, formerly the Twitter. After detaining him for over two weeks, he was granted an administrative bail, which would be impossible to meet,” he said.

However, a source said that the secret police had seized Soyinka’s travel passport. Also, the arbitrary arrest of journalists by the President Bola Tinubu-led administration has been criticised by many civil society organisations and pro-democracy activists who expressed strong resentment over the unsavoury development.

They described the Gestapo-styled arrest of journalists as an echo from the past, and a prominent feature of the dark years of military rule. They said the ugly development impugned press freedom 25 years after Nigeria transitioned from dictatorial rule to democratic governance.

Meanwhile, the DSS has given the reason for arresting Adejuwon Soyinka. DSS Spokesperson, Peter Ifunnaya, said the DSS “intercepted” the journalist based on a request from another government agency.

“We are working on Adejuwon Soyinka’s case,” he confirmed in a text message. He did not provide the identity of the agency on whose behalf the arrest was carried out.