Publisher of Royal Times Magazine
The publisher of Royal Times Magazine, Mr. Ranti Alaba Thomas, was arrested on June 3, 2022 by men of the Lagos State Command of the Nigeria Police and detained incommunicado in a police underground detention facility for four days before he was released.
The publisher of the Royal Times newspaper was abducted at gunpoint by six armed men of the Nigeria Police.
Narrating his ordeal, Ranti said while in the office, he received a call from a man who claimed to be a DHL dispatcher and who said he had a parcel to deliver to the publisher. He said he gave his address to the caller who turned out to be a policeman and who came to his office with five others, all armed.
The publisher said the policemen said they wanted to arrest someone who had called his line. The publisher said he did not know the person in question and that when the number was called with his phone, it was not a number stored in the phone.
He said in spite of not knowing the person they were looking for, he was still arrested, taken to the Lagos State Police Command at Alagbon in Lagos where he was detained, had his phone confiscated and then detained incommunicado and without food till June 6 when he was brought out from detention in the afternoon and thereafter released. At this time, his professional colleagues had started looking for him and reported his disappearance at different police stations.
