The State Security Service (SSS) detained an Ogun State Correspondent of The Punch newspaper, Mr. Segun Olatunji, on Monday May 27, 2013. Mr. Olatunji had gone to the SSS Command office on the invitation of its state Director, Mr. Joseph Okpo.
Mr. Olatunji, narrating his story said he was ushered into Okpo’s office on arrival at the SSS office at about 12.15pm, after being asked questions about his academic qualifications and work experience. He said he was told he would have to wait behind to assist the agency over issues bordering on national security.
According to Olatunji, he was led to the office of the State Security Service by Mr. Kehinde Akinyemi , Chairman of the Correspondent Chapel of Nigerian Union of Journalists in Ogun State, who did not tell him (Olatunji) what the mission was all about.
Olatunji said, “At exactly 8.04am on Monday, the Chairman of the Correspondent Chapel of the Ogun State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Mr. Kehinde Akinyemi, called me on the telephone, informing me that the State Director of the SSS, Mr. Joseph Okpo, wanted to ‘see us’.
“Akinyemi then asked that we meet at the Iwe Irohin secretariat of the NUJ from where we would proceed to the SSS office located in Oke-Mosan by 11.00am.
“The moment we got to the gate house of the SSS office, I smelt a rat in the way we were attended to by the officer manning the gate. While he gave Akinyemi the visitor’s tag, he told me I did not need one.
“The SSS state director almost immediately started interrogating me in the presence of Akinyemi, who looked on.
“We were together in the deputy director’s office until I was asked to go and make the first statement in the principal staff officer’s office. By the time I returned, Akinyemi had left.
“It would be interesting to note that I had yet to take my breakfast as at the time we went into the SSS office and I was not allowed to leave the room to take even a drop of water throughout the more than eight hours I spent in the SSS office,” he said.
“The correspondent chairman resurfaced at about 8pm to join the NUJ chairman in ‘bailing’ me out of the SSS detention,” he said.
