Police AIG Mbu Detains AIT Reporter

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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