FirstNews Editor: 'I Was Handcuffed For Three Days...my body still in pains’ ,he recounted

 

 

Freed FirstNews Editor, Segun Olatunji, has recounted the harrowing ordeal he went through in the hands of his abductors

Recall that on Friday March 15,;2024 , 10 gun men, two.of them in military uniform, stormed Olatunji’s residence in the Iyana Odo area of Abule Egba, Lagos State, and forcibly abducted him.

He vividly captured his ordeal in.captivity at a press briefing organized by the leaderships of Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), and International Press Institute (IPI) shortly after his release, Olatunji.

“At first, they put me in a cell. There I was left with leg and hand cuffs. And at a point, one of the officers came and tightened the right leg and the right hand, and I was there growing in pain,” Olatunji shared, describing the agonizing moments he endured.

“They didn’t loosen it until about two or three days after. And at that time, the whole part of my body was getting node. In fact, up till now, I can still feel the pains,” he said.

Throughout his detention, Olatunji said his captors subjected him to interrogation, questioning him about certain stories published by FirstNews online, specifically mentioning one about the chief of staff to the President.

“While in detention, they were asking me questions about certain stories that FirstNews had carried,” he revealed. “They first told me that I was one of those abusing the chief of defence intelligence. Then they also asked about a story we carried about the Chief of Staff to the president, and that was a major thing.”
The freed editor strongly believe that those behind his ordeal are close to the corridors of power.

“Those behind my arrest are people behind the corridors of power, who are not happy with what FirstNews is doing, and are bent on taking their own pound of flesh.”

Pressures from the media, in concert with the International Press Institute, NUJ and NGE, forced the Defence Intelligence Agency to own up to holding Olatunji, and he was released on Thursday after almost two weeks in detention.