Nine gunmen, invaded the Abuja offices of the privately-owned daily, ThisDay newspaper, at about 3.00 am on January 27, 2022, assaulting some of its production staff and the private security guards on duty.
The newspaper’s Abuja Bureau Chief, Mr. Iyobosa Uwugiaren, said that the gunmen entered the building through the same route the outlet was attacked about 10 years ago.
He said they held everyone in the premises, comprising mostly of the production staff, to ransom for about 45 minutes, asking them to lie down and threatening to kill them if they alerted the police.
The Bureau Chief said they also left through the same route they came, adding that they didn’t take anything but that they warned the private guard, that they said they will return.
Iyobosa said he could not connect the raid to the newspaper’s published stories in recent times, or precisely link the raid to any of the newspaper’s political foes or who it might have offended in their story updates but he outrightly dismissed the explanation by the police that it was merely a robbery incident.
Iyobosa said the media outlet reported the case to police at Utako for investigation but was not satisfied with the police theory that the incident was just an armed robbery without even attempting to investigate the matter.
He argued that if the incident was indeed an armed robbery the gunmen would not have left without taking a single thing all through the raid and harassment of the paper’s staff members.
