Society Gists

The Nigerian police, on Monday, detained a journalist and founder of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), Fisayo Soyombo, the newspaper said in a statement.

According to the statement signed by Damilola Ayeni, the journalist was invited in connection to a report exposing a Commissioner of Police, Joseph Egbunike, who approved the establishment of a police transit camp in six states, a project the newspaper said was either non-existent or little work done.

Mr Egbunike was in charge of the panel set up by the Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali, to investigate the embattled Commander of the Police Intelligence Unit, Abba Kyari.

“Fisayo Soyombo, Founder of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), is currently being detained at the Force headquarters, Abuja, by the police.
Soyombo was on a long trip on November 23 when he received an SMS that read:

“Good Afternoon sir, this office is conducting an investigation in which your name and phone number featured, in view of this, you are to interview the Head, IGP Monitoring Unit on the 29th November, 2021 by 1000hrs at 1st Floor, Force Hqtrs, Abuja. Thanks.

“Knowing he committed no offence, he honoured the police invitation on Monday, days after returning from the trip, only to discover it was in connection to a story exposing the award of transit police camp projects that do not exist to the tune of the contract sums,” FIJ said in a statement.

Police spokesman, Frank Mba, neither responded to phone calls nor text messages when contacted on the matter.

However, PREMIUM TIMES learnt that Mr Soyombo had been granted bail and was in the process of perfecting the bail conditions at the time of this report.

More details shortly….