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Security Agents Arrest And Interrogate Three Newspaper Vendors
Four State Security Services (SSS) agents,
Nigeria’s secret intelligence agency, on January 20 raided newsstands in
Enugu, Enugu State in southeastern Nigeria. They arrested the state
chairman of the Newspapers Vendors' Association of Nigeria, Mr. Clement
Egbuche, and two newspaper vendors, identified as Emeji and Chidinma. The
three were arrested for selling copies of the tabloid newspaper Eastern
Pilot, which carried reports of the "emergence of a new Biafra
nation".
Reports have it that the SSS officers arrived at the vendors' offices at approximately 10:00 a.m.
(local time) and began ransacking the place. They seized copies of the
newspaper from Emeji and asked to know its source. Emeji took them to see
Chidinma, a female vendor. Both Emeji and Chidinma were then arrested. The
security men forced the two vendors to take them to Egbuche's office,
alleged to be the distributor of the newspaper.
At the association's
office, Egbuche was arrested and handcuffed. After the security agents
finished searching his office, they took him, along with the two vendors
to the SSS headquarters in Enugu, where the three were interrogated and
later released.
Narrating his experience
after his release, Egbuche said vendors had not been told that it is an
offence to sell any newspaper carrying a story about the Movement for the
Advancement of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB). He added that their
business was to "sell news products to make ends meet." He alleged that
one of the SSS officers had slapped one of his sales women before he was
arrested.
An SSS official
reportedly confirmed the incident, saying the agency considered "Eastern
Pilot" newspaper to be subversive. He justified the action saying,
"because of the purported declaration of the independence of Biafra, on 20
January 2005, our men went to the field on routine checks. There, they
intercepted this publication, which we consider very subversive, and
demanded to know how it came about. In the process, we arrested three of
the vendors. They were brought here and were released later, after
interrogation."
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