The five media workers of the state-owned Ondo State Radio-Vision Corporation (OSRC) who were arrested and whisked away like criminals on Friday have been released.
The five media workers of the state-owned Ondo State Radio-Vision Corporation (OSRC) who were arrested and whisked away like criminals on Friday have been released.
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SaharaReporters learned that their release, by the ‘A’ Division of the Ondo State Police Command, was due to the intervention of elders and concerned stakeholders in the state.
The men: Taiwo Ibitoye, Akinwumi Abodunde, Olanrewaju Bankole (Lanre-Cole), Sola Obagbemisoye and Obafemi Sogbe, were detained for 24 hours without access to their families, colleagues or even phones.
One of them said that although they were not tortured, they were thrown into the cell like hardened criminals and denied access to their personal belongings.
At about 2 pm today, they were given back their seized items, which included their phones.
SaharaReporters gathered that the families of the detained journalists besieged the ‘A’ Division soon after the arrests. The wife of one of the journalists wept ceaselessly at the arrest of her husband but was reassured that her husband would be released.
Telephone calls both from within and outside the state were said to have flooded the Police Command following the breaking of the story by SaharaReporters, many of them questioning the justification of the arrest of the journalists.
The five were picked up during a non-violent protest concerning the dilapidated situation of OSRC under the leadership of the Director General, Ladi Akeredolu-Ale.
A junior worker and freelance journalist at the corporation who asked for anonymity told SaharaReporters that the Chairman of the Governing Board of OSRC, Barrister Kayode Ajulo, said he only read the report at SaharaReporters and wanted quick intervention before the matter was blown out of proportion.
Ajulo was said to have personally rescued Mr. Akeredolu-Ale, who would have been beaten up during a meeting at the station on Tuesday.
The workers chased from the premises the DG, who had been brought to head the station from Channels Television, Lagos, over what they called his 'insensitivity' to their plight.
They accused him of lacking respect for their welfare despite their yearly Internally Generated Revenue of about N80 million.
His secretary was also said to have fled for her life upon sighting the workers who had alleged that she was the one who furnished her boss with information about the decisions of the workers against the DG.
Several workers in the organization on Saturday afternoon revealed that they had also learned about the arrest of their colleagues in SaharaReporters.
They thanked SaharaReporters for the story, pointing out that some journalists came to the organization during the protest and did shoddy reports in favor of the management, mostly the DG.
A human rights activist in the state, Ogunjimi Badejoko, had yesterday berated some journalists who in their reports failed to focus on facts in order to help their colleagues to obtain justice.
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In a short message on social media yesterday night, Ogunjimi said, "I just don't know why this media house and their journalists cannot be like SaharaReporters. A crisis between Management and OSRC workers was reported widely by SaharaReporters and some journalists here in Akure kept mute over the injustice to their colleagues.
"Some that did the report even did a shoddy one in favor of Ladi Akereledou Ale. Well, Am not surprised because many of them are under the payroll of the Governor. They have sealed their mouth to see injustice and call it justice.”
Meanwhile, it has been gathered that Mr. Ajulo has promised to set up a panel to look into the crisis, and that the findings of the committee will be worked upon to address the concerns of the aggrieved workers.
SaharaReporters had reported yesterday that stern-looking security personnel, with about 50 police officers with two Armoured Personnel Carriers and about five police patrol vans, were stationed at the station's main gate, apparently to forestall any possible of breakdown of law and order.
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