Officers of Nigeria’s national intelligency, the Department of State Security (DSS) services on November 30, 2016 arrested and detained journalist Friday Ogungbemi.
The DSS reportedly arrested Ogungbemi on the orders of Yahaya Bello Governor of Kogi State, central Nigeria after he (Ogungbemi) wrote an article in community magazine, Policy and Law Maker in which he allegedly described the Chief of Staff to the governor, Edward David Onoja as the “defacto Governor.”
Reports say the DSS operatives detained Ogungbemi for two days and took him back to his home on December 1 to search his house. the operatives reportedly took away copies of the magazine and some unnamed items.
Meanwhile Ogungbemi’s wife is said to have told journalists Nigerian Union Journalist Press Centre, that her husband is terminally ill and his continued detention will adversely affect his health.
The wife, Mrs Comfort Ogungbemi, explained that their children have been traumatised from the arrest and continued detention of their father.
Meanwhile, the Kogi state council of the Nigerian Union of Journalists has called on Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari to call Governor Yahaya Bello and the DSS to order saying the continuing detention of the journalist was at variance with the 1948 United Nation Charter on Human Right and the Constitution of Nigeria.
The MFWA joins the NUJ in condemning the arrest and continued detention of the journalist and urges the DSS to release him.
