Daily Trust Condemns Arrest Of Its Reporter By Police

Media Trust Limited, the publisher of Daily Trust titles has condemned the abduction of one of its reporters by armed policemen.

The police on Tuesday arrested Abdullahi Krishi, House of Representatives correspondent of Daily Trust.

The Cable reports that Dele Olaoye, National Assembly divisional crime officer (DCO), had stormed the media centre inside the National Assembly complex around 12pm on Tuesday, demanding to see Krishi.

Olaoye subsequently handed over the reporter to some operatives who whisked him into an unmarked Toyota Hilux SUV and sped off.

Mannir Dan-Ali, Executive Officer of Daily Trust, in a statement described the abduction as an act of intimidation not only on the media outfit alone, but an unwarranted assault on Journalism and the media profession in the country.

According to the statement, the reporter was abducted following the publication of a paid advertisement which the governor of Jigawa State, Muhammad Badaru had taken exception to.

Some of the reporters who witnessed the arrest quoted the officers as saying there is a complaint that Krishi wrote a defamatory story against a governor.

The statement read: “Though the full ramifications of the investigation they claimed to be carrying out has not been made known to the management of Daily Trust, the abduction of Krishi is the height of intimidation visited upon this company since January 26, 2018 following the publication of a paid advertisement.

“The advertorial in question had no criminal content; it was not in any way libellous against the governor of Jigawa State or any other political personality contained therein which the governor of Jigawa State had taken exception to”.

“If anything, this is a civil-cum-political issue, and, as a newspaper, we have bent over backward by carrying out the necessary retraction and publishing the disclaimers by the government of Jigawa State. The abduction of our journalist was unwarranted and an abuse on the rights of our reporter.”

Dan-Ali wondered why the Police in Kano upstaged the IGP’s investigation by coming to Abuja to abduct one of its reporters, adding that “the police in Kano can only do this because of undue pressures from Jigawa State Government”.

The newspaper appealed President Muhammadu Buhari and the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to call the police in Kano to order and to immediately release the reporter.