Kwara Government Withdraws Charges Against Two Journalists

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Akogun Brothers

The Kwara State government has withdrawn charges against Dare Akogun, senior editor at Sobi FM and his brother, Abdulrasheed Akogun, publisher of Fresh Insight online TV.

During the court proceedings, government prosecutor, Busari Olorundare, applied to withdraw the case stating no reason for his action.

Magistrate Bio Salihu who presided over the matter acceded to the request, and thereafter terminated all the charges against the defendants and discharged them accordingly.

The two journalists were on October 13 2022, arrested and detained by men of the Nigerian Police Force in Ilorin, Kwara State upon honouring an invitation from the State’s Deputy Commissioner of Police.

They were detained on the orders of the Deputy Commissioner of Police in the Criminal Investigation Department of the Kwara State Command of the Nigeria Police, Mr. Steve Yabanet, when they refused to comply with his directive that they should write a letter of apology to Mr Ajakaye Rafiu, the Chief Press Secretary to the State Governor, who lodged the complaint leading to their arrest.

In the petition, which he wrote on October 6, 2022, the spokesman of the Governor had claimed that the two journalists broke the Law through their posts on September 30, 2022, on a popular WhatsApp group, Kwara Commission, in which they made false allegations against him and the State Governor that they used over N15 million in public funds to influence the chairmanship election in a recently concluded election into the Kwara State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) and thereby inciting the public against him as well as criminally defaming his character.

The two journalists were detained overnight until the morning of October 14, 2022, when they were arraigned before a Magistrate Court sitting in Ilorin.