FirstNews editor Segun Olatunji, who regained his freedom on Thursday after 14 days in military detention, has recounted his ordeal in the hands of his abductors.
Mr Olatunji was abducted from his Lagos home on 15 March by the military and was taken to Abuja, where he was held incommunicado for days until his release.
While in detention, several journalists’ unions and his media organisation relentlessly demanded his freedom.
His colleagues at FirstNews also went spiritual in the quest to get him released.
Shortly after his release, Mr Olatunji gave a vivid account of his ordeal at a joint presser organised by the International Press Institute (IPI), the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) and the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Abuja.
He said at the dusk of Friday, 15 March, he and his seven-year-old son were watching a popular television programme on TVC, ‘Journalists Hangout,’ at home when armed military personnel broke into his living room in a Gestapo way.
He said the men were accompanied by his wife, whom they had taken from her shop and forced to take them to his house.
He said he was immediately arrested and whisked away to the air force base, also in Lagos.
“On March 15 March, I was at my house in Lagos, watching ‘Journalists’ Hangout’ with my seven-year-old son, when suddenly, soldiers burst into the sitting room.
“I saw my wife and one-year-old son amongst them, crying. I asked what happened, and she said they arrested her from her shop and asked her to take them to where I was,” Mr Olatunji described how the soldiers used his wife as a bait to arrest him.
He would later learn while being incarcerated by the military that some intelligence officers had lodged at a hotel near his wife’s shop days before they invaded his house to effect his arrest.
Giving further insights into the event of 15 March, Mr Olatunji said he identified a top military officer among the menacing soldiers simply called Lawal, a colonel, from whom he sought to know why he was being arrested.
“I asked an officer, whom I identified as Colonel Lawal if I could know why they were looking for me, and he said no, that they were from the military and they were there to arrest me.
“Immediately, he seized my phones as he had earlier seized my wife’s phones. I said okay, let me go in and dress up since I was only in my boxer shorts; some of them (soldiers) even followed me to my room as I took my shirt and trousers.”
The embattled journalist said he stepped out of his house into a waiting crowd of armed military personnel comprising the army, Air Force and Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA).
“They handcuffed me and put me into the vehicle. At first, I thought they were taking me to the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) in Apapa (Lagos), but then we made a detour to the Air Force Base and straight to the office of the National Air Defence Corps (NADC) where we waited for about three hours. I didn’t know we were waiting for a military aircraft to come pick me up.