Nigeria’s Department of State Services (DSS) has received orders to arrest Samuel Ogundipe, a journalist with Premium Times for writing an exclusive report which exposed a rift between the National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno and Abba Kyari, the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, sources familiar with the development told SIGNAL on Saturday.
Ogundipe’s report detailed how Monguno accused Kyari of undue and dangerous interference on matters bordering on national security and subsequently fired a warning memo to all service chiefs to desist from taking further directives from Kyari.
In the letter first made public by Premium Times, Monguno said Kyari’s directives to service chiefs were sometimes issued without the knowledge much less approval of the president, a practice he said has added to the government’s inability to contain insecurity.
The journalist who is now very concerned about his saftety has gone into hiding having received threats and information about being arrested by the DSS to extract from him details of his source.
“My email account was hacked yesterday. I have been told that they are looking for me to get the source who leaked the letter to me”, the journalist told SIGNAL.
Ogundipe is well known for breaking reports on matters of national security, one of which led to his arrest and detention by the Nigerian Police in 2018 for refusing to reveal his source.
Former Chairman of Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Prof. Chidi Odinkalu also confirmed the development in a tweet.
#Breaking: #Nigeria‘s State Security operatives are looking to arrest @SamuelOgundipe
& extract from him the source(s) of his journalistic reporting on the feud between the NSA, Chief of Staff, & the Chief of Army Staff.#LeaveSamOgundipeAlone#JournalismIsNotACrime pic.twitter.com/UrGDsCrrMy— Chidi Odinkalu (@ChidiOdinkalu) February 29, 2020
More to come…
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