HURIWA faults Uzodimma, Police over arrest of Imo journalist, Uba

Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has faulted the attempt by the Imo State government to justify the gestapo type abduction by some unidentified armed men in the street of Owerri at the weekend of a radio journalist Mr. Nonso Uba over alleged libel against the person of the Imo State governor Mr. Hope Uzodimma.

The human rights group urged the police to immediately free the abducted journalist, apologise for the illegal manner of his arrest and/or charge him to the competent Court of law if the governor has good enough evidence against him.

HURIWA has tasked the police service commission to ascertain how the Nigeria Police Force could mobilise huge financial resources to probably fly a chartered aircraft or pay for the expensive tickets on commercial airlines with the sole purpose of invading Owerri to arrest a journalist over civil libel.

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It said the libel or slander under the Nigerian jurisprudence as in most jurisdictions around the World is essentially a CIVIL MATTER, just as the Rights group maintained that it was unnecessary for the Imo State governor to reach out to the Police Force headquarters in Abuja which led to what most eye witnesses had described as broad daylight armed kidnapping of a citizen of Nigeria.

It expressed shock that under a democracy, the police operatives paid with taxpayers money can behave like terrorists, kidnapping a journalist by the road side.

It will be recalled that the Imo State Government on Saturday claimed that the police in Abuja arrested the journalist on allegations of criminal libel bordering on threat to state security.

The Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Declan Emelumba, in a statement in Owerri regretted that commentators have been blinded by emotions, such that they have completely ignored the alleged offence of the radio presenter.

According to Emelumba, the government as a law abiding institution sought the help of the police to investigate and substantiate the veracity or otherwise of the allegations.