The Department of State Services (DSS) has returned the seized passport of Adejuwon Soyinka, the West African editor of The Conversation Africa.
On August 25, Soyinka was detained by the Department of
State Services (DSS) at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos,
shortly after arriving from the UK.
Peter Afunanya, DSS spokesperson, told TheCable that
Soyinka, the pioneer editor of the BBC pidgin service, was arrested at the
request of another agency.
A few hours after his arrest, the journalist was released
following the intervention of the International Press Institute (IPI) Nigeria,
a global network of editors, media executives, and communication experts.
But his passport remained seized.
On Friday, Soyinka was accompanied by Inibehe Effiong, the
human rights lawyer, to the DSS office in Ikoyi, Lagos to retrieve the
passport.
Speaking on the development, Effiong said the secret police
attributed the arrest of the journalist to “mistaken identity”.
The arrest of Soyinka is the latest in the spate of attacks
against journalists under the administration of President Bola Tinubu.
In March, Segun Olatunji, a former editor of FirstNews, was
arrested in Lagos.
In May, Daniel Ojukwu, a journalist with the Foundation for
Investigative Journalism (FIJ), was detained by the police for 10 days.
Jamil Mabai, a freelance journalist, was also detained by
the Katsina Hisbah religious police.
The Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre
(NPF-NCCC) has also detained several journalists and whistleblowers over
petitions filed against them.
Several journalists were also harrassed and assaulted during
the #EndBadGovernance protests across the country.
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