After spending two weeks at the Defence Intelligence Agency detention facility in Abuja, the Editor of First News, Mr. Segun Olatunji, finally regained freedom on Thursday morning, narrating his less than human ordeal in the hands of his abductors.

Before his release, Olatunji was kept incommunicado with family and colleagues having no clue of his whereabouts until he was released to some senior editors, including Yomi Odunuga of The Nation newspaper and Iyobosa Uwugiaren of Thisday Newspaper, the Secretary-General of the Nigeria Guild of Editor (NGE) at a location under the bridge in Abuja.

Olatunji, who was abducted and whisked away in a bizzare/commando style, from his Iyana Odo Abule Egba home in Lagos by a group of hooded military operatives on March 15, 2024, was allegedly tortured by his captors for allegedly authorising the publication of a story against some top government officials.

Totally piqued and disgusted by the unjust abduction, his colleagues and media coalitions under the aegis of International Press Institute (IPI), Nigeria Guild of Editors (NGE) and the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), swung into action, asking President Bola Tinubu to wade into the matter by ordering the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Gen. Christopher Musa to produce the embattled Editor alive.

Recounting his ordeals, Olatunji, who started by thanking his colleagues, family, relatives, employer and the media coalition for the efforts made to wrest him from his captors, condemned his abduction and eventual incarceration, saying he was “blind folded, taken into an aircraft, flown to Abuja and dumped in a military cell for days”.

Speakind further, he said: “My ordeal in the hands of the abductor is the handiwork of people within the corridors of power in the country. 

“After tracking me to my home, they arrested and whisked me away. They handcuffed me and tightened my legs with chains, which made my body become numb.

“After that, they started asking me about a certain story and forced me write a statement.

“Just yesterday, they told me to call someone in Abuja to guarantee my release and I called Mr. Yomi Odunuga, asking him to meet us around ECOWAS secretariat and I was let off under a bridge where they (Yomi and others picked me up).”

However, while updating colleagues at a press conference held at the FCT Council of the NUJ, Utako, Abuja, the Secretary-General of NGE, Mr. Iyobosa Uwugiaren, described the DIA’s action as a direct attack on press freedom.

While thanking the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Mohammed Idris Malagi, and the National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, for their interventions, the body added: “If the press is not allowed to carry out its social and constitutional responsibilities but instead obligated to be suppressed by powerful forces, it simply serves as an extension of jack-booth rule. Without freedom of the press, our democracy is endangered”.