Nigerian authorities are reportedly planning to the arrest of undercover journalist, Fisayo Soyombo, over an investigative report profiling corruption in Nigeria’s prisons.
WuzupNigeria reports that Soyombo’s undercover stories had exposed the depth of corruption in Nigerian police cells and prison.
The first instalment of the three-part investigation by Fisayo Soyombo, a former editor of The Cable and a contributor to Al Jazeera, detailed how Nigerian policemen “pervert the course of justice in their quest for ill-gotten money”.
In the second part of the investigation published on Monday by The Cable, he exposed “how the courts short-change the law, and the prisons are themselves a cesspool of the exact reasons for which they hold inmates.”
During his investigation, Soyombo took on an alias – Ojo Olajumoke – spent five days in a cell at Pedro Police Station, Shomolu, Lagos. And eight days in Ikoyi prison.
The second part of Soyombo’s story reportedly irked the Nigerian prison authorities.
Quoting a security source, The Guardian reported that there were plans to arrest Soyombo at a workshop on fake news organised by Goethe Institute schedule for Tuesday evening.
Soyombo was scheduled to speak at the event but he has since pulled out and gone into hiding.
“Prisons authorities are very angry and have decided to get the journalist arrested,” The Guardian quoted a source as saying on Tuesday morning.
“He is to be charged to court and prosecuted under Section 29 of the Nigeria Correctional Service Act.”
Another source told The Guardian on Monday that Soyombo has been forced to vacate his residence for which he has just renewed rent and go underground.
The hounding and the outright assassination of journalists who exposed the official corruption in Nigerian are rampant.
Agba Jalingo, a journalist and publisher of an online newspaper CrossRiverWatch, is currently in jail and facing allegations of treason after he published a story on alleged diversion of N500 million by the Cross River governor, Ben Ayade.
Another journalist Jones Abiri is also facing prosecution under Nigeria’s cybercrimes act, anti-sabotage act, and terrorism prevention act for crimes allegedly carried out in 2016.
Abiri was held by Nigeria’s secret police without any charge between July 2016 to August 2018. He was rearrested nine months after he was freed by the Department of State Services.
The Guardian
