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Security Operatives
Invade Broadcast house, Disrupt Broadcast
On April 17, 2007, armed men believed
to be State Security Service (SSS) operatives, Nigeria’s intelligence
agency, invaded the offices of Daar Communications PLC, owners and
operators of Raypower Radio and Africa Independent Television (AIT) in
Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory. The marauding team forced
its way into the Master Control facility of AIT, violently forced
broadcast operatives out of the Radio studio and knocked AIT off air, an
action which caused disruption of programmes that lasted for about four
hours.
The gun-wielding-men who stormed the
media house at about 2.55pm also ordered, at gun point, the three
Control room officers, two women and a man, to lie face down and then
went about their mission.
They forcefully removed the broadcast
tape of a documentary being aired at the time of the invasion and went
away with it.
They returned at about half an hour
later in an ash-coloured J5 Space bus with no registration number. On
arrival, they made straight for the Master Control Room of AIT and
removed every available broadcast material that they could carry.
As at the time they left, the engineers
at Daar Communications were working to fully ascertain the extent of
damage to the media’s broadcast facilities on both AIT and Raypower.
Only on April 15,
2007, at about 2.00 am, a mysterious explosion rocked the transmitter
building of AIT/Raypower at its Lagos office and effectively shot down
transmissions of signals by both AIT and Raypower in the Lagos Area.
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