SAN FRANCISCO, November 29, (THEWILL) – The army has set free a Service Producer of the Voice of America (VOA), Grace Alheri Abdu held in Oyigbo, Rivers state.
Abdu was detained by the soldiers at about 2pm Saturday until about 7pm when she regained freedom after several alleged interventions by key stakeholders.
The VOA reporter, who was on a media investigative visit to Oyigbo said the soldiers who held her were “all drunk and intoxicated”. They told me to “thank my God that I was a female journalist, and not from any of the media houses based in Port Harcourt otherwise they would have wasted me and that nothing would happen”, she added.
The soldiers had allegedly accused her of running live broadcast of her assignment in Oyigbo, as well as transmitting military operations in the volatile area live without permission.
She denied the allegations, claiming that as soon arriving Oyigbo, dropped off by a relation, also a journalist, she walked down to a group of soldiers by the Oyigbo Expressway, and introduced herself.
She further claimed she sought their permission to snap photo shots of the burnt Oyigbo Police Station with one of the soldiers responding that since it was a police station, it was only the police that could grant her request or otherwise.
The soldiers were said to have been infuriated when, in defiance of their caution, the VOA reporter had moved to the area of the burnt police station, and with no single policeman on sight, clicked her camera on the scene.
Her freedom was facilitated by several interventions including a statement from the United States Embassy in Nigeria directed at the Nigerian military hierarchy, those from the West African Journalists’ Association, WAJA, foreign and local rights groups.
Spokesman of the 6 Division, Nigerian Army, Maj Charles Ekeocha could not be reached for reaction to the development at the time of filing this report.
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