The Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) in Zone 7,
Mr. Mbu Joseph Mbu, yesterday, October 2, ordered the arrest and
detention of a journalist, Amaechi Anakwue for describing him as a
“controversial police officer” during a television programme.
Amaechi, a senior correspondent and presenter for the African
Independent Television (AIT), was invited by Mbu to his office at the
Zone 7 police headquarters in Abuja on Thursday morning and on getting
there, Mbu ordered his men to detain him, Premium Times reports.
His detention was greeted with outrage from media practitioners and
rights advocates who said Mbu was going too far and exhibiting power
drunkenness.
“I think it has to do with the culture and level of impunity that
Mbu has been allowed to exhibit right from his days as police
commissioner in Rivers state to today,” Imoni Mac-Amarere, Executive Director, News and Current Affairs at AIT, said.
The Abuja chapter of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) described
the AIG’s action as unbecoming of an officer of the law, who should
have headed to the law courts in the event of defamation or libel.
Mr Chuks Ehirim, the chairman of the Abuja chapter of NUJ who spoke
to Leadership said Nigeria has beyond the era of arbitrary and illegal
detention and brutalisation of Nigerians by law enforcement agents,
while also calling on the police AIG to immediately release the detained
reporter.
He said, “I just got information now that Anakwe has been
released but asked to report at the police station by 7am tomorrow
(today). All the same, I don’t see what is wrong in the word
‘controversy’ that should warrant arrest and detention.”
The management of DAAR Communications also demanded the release of the reporter last night.
Mr. Mbu was Rivers State commissioner of Police and was later
redeployed to Abuja, following his hostile relationship with the
governor of the state, Rotimi Amaechi who accused him of taking sides
with the president and the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party to undermine
him.
Before his redeployment to Abuja, he was accused of authorising the
use of “rubber bullets” to disperse a group preparing to hold a rally in
Rivers state, in which Senator Magnus Abe was shot.
On getting to Abuja, he authorised the use of water cannon to
disperse protesting lecturers of polytechnics and colleges of education
at the Eagle Square.
He was recently promoted to the rank of Assistant Inspector General.
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