“I was bruised, and received the beating of my life. They tore my clothes, seized my phones and damaged some of my recording devices," Ayodeji Moradeyo.
Ayodeji Moradeyo, a senior reporter with the Lagos-based Television Continental (TVC), was covering a political event in the state when some PDP party agents seized him, beat him up, and handed him to the police for detention.
Mr. Moradeyo was beaten up by thugs working for Iyiola Omisore, the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He was then whisked away early in the afternoon by security agents, but has now been released. Reports about his abduction instantly went viral, spreading panic among his family members and other reporters, with some sources asserting that his capture was politically motivated.
Working as TVC’s correspondent in Ondo State, Mr. Moradeyo had been assigned by his editors in Lagos to join a team of reporters in Osun State. They were covering the forthcoming governorship election scheduled for Saturday, August 9.
In a phone call with SaharaReporters shortly after his release, Mr. Moradeyo said he and his news crew were ambushed at a news event by thugs working for the PDP, one of the opposition parties in the coming election.
“I was at the office of the PDP in the state to balance my report over some allegations. Immediately I got there and introduced myself, they started calling me all sort of names. They said our station belongs to the ruling opposition party in the state and is being run and funded by one of the popular opposition leaders in Lagos,” said Mr. Moradeyo. “I was bruised, and received the beating of my life. They tore my clothes, seized my phones and damaged some of my recording devices," he said, "I had never been handcuffed in my life before today. I was handed over to the police and thrown into a waiting van as if I was a criminal.”
Mr. Moradeyo said he was subsequently detained for several hours at the offices of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Osun State police command in Osogbo, where he was denied access to some of his colleagues who besieged the station.
“They refused to tell me my offence, after I was barred from seeing my colleagues who came to the station,” he said. According to him, he was later freed with a warning “to beware in Osun State.”
SaharaReporters placed several phone calls to the Osun State police public relations officer, Folashade Odoro, but she had not responded to our calls as at the time of writing this report.