Exactly a week after his abduction and subsequent detention, the Abuja Bureau Chief of National LIFE Newspaper, Mr. Akin Orimolade, was Tuesday set free.
He regained freedom after the Bayelsa State governor, Chief Timipre Sylva, yielded to public pressure mounted against the continued detention of the journalist. In addition, the governor has dropped his planned suit against National LIFE and Mr. Louis Odion, Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief and Mr. Mobolaji Sanusi, Saturday Editor.
Orimolade was abducted on the streets of Abuja on March 17 by agents of the Bayelsa State Government who conned him, claiming to be officials of Silverbird Cinema, seeking to advertise in National LIFE. His abductors then said they had obtained a warrant from a Bayelsa State Magistrate’s Court to arrest him but failed to produce it.
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Aided by armed anti-riot policemen, the government agents forcefully took Orimolade to Yenogoa, the Bayelsa State capital, put him into a cell full of hardened criminals and later, preferred a charge of criminal defamation against him before a Magistrate’s Court in the state capital.
The state government’s grouse had to do with a story published in the National Life weekly on Saturday, January 31, 2009 entitled, ‘Gov Sylva Tyson,’ which carried Orimolade’s by-line. It was a report on how the governor exchanged blows with a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party from Bayelsa State, Mr. Fred Agbedi, at the bar of an Abuja hotel. Although the governor’s Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Dofie Ola, denied that his boss was the agent-provocateur of the brawl, he nonetheless admitted a shouting match between the two men at the hotel.
But in an exclusive interview later granted National LIFE, Agbedi insisted that he was beaten up by the governor.
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At the time Orimolade was being seized in Abuja by the government agents, the governor’s lawyers from the chambers of Kola Babalola (SAN) & Co, were sending a letter in which they complained about the story and asked National LIFE to apologize and pay compensation, or risk a libel suit. But the newspaper stood by its story.
While in detention, Orimolade managed to smuggle out his prison notes through text messages detailing the terrible and horrifying state of the typical Nigerian Police cell.
During his ordeal, there was an outpouring of public condemnation against the action of the Bayelsa Government. Nigerian human rights attorney and West Africa Bar Association President, Femi Falana, traveled to Bayelsa to witness the trial. He told Saharareporters that he was ashamed of the Bayelsa State government for using the long-discredited tactic of intimidation to settle a civil matter.
It would be recalled that last year, the regime of Umaru Yar'Adua embarked on a series of strategic efforts to muzzle members of the media in the country. Such incidents include the closure and revocation of the licence of private television stations (Channels Television); the arrest of three bloggers; a criminal defamation lawsuit against editors of Leadership Newspapers in Abuja; and the encouragement of lawsuits and eerie intimidation tactics against Saharareporters personnel and operations in the United States.
National LIFE and Mr. Orimolade are said to be considering a lawsuit of their own against Governor Sylva and the Bayelsa State government.
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