The Advocacy for Integrity and Economic Development (AIED) has described the alleged move by the Nigerian government to summarily arrest an investigative journalist, Fisayo Soyombo, for exposing the rots and corruption in the Nigeria Prison Service and Police Force as “nauseating” and “appalling”.
In a press release on Tuesday, signed by its Director of Media and Publicity, O’Seun John, the organisation chided the Federal Government for going against its anti-corruption stand and sliding into totalitarianism.
“We woke up today to a piece of disturbing news, one capable of eroding every piece of civility in our country and knighting us as nothing more than a Banana Republic,” the statement said.
“Mr. Fisayo Soyombo, the highly decorated investigative journalist who has been at the forefront of exposing the rots in our society is being surveyed for arrest by agents of the Federal Government for once again exposing the massive corruption across the Police and Prison Services in the country.
“The now-viral undercover investigative work embarked upon by Mr. Fisayo which exposure seems to have triggered some powerful officers of the Prison and Police Services should be commended by all progressive Nigerian.
What Mr. Fisayo has done will take months and huge resources to unearth should the federal government have lived through its promise of ridding the system of corruption.
“Mr. Fisayo is a national hero that puts himself in dangerous circumstances to protect whatever is left of the sanity of this country. Instead of having him feared for his life and that of his family, the federal government should be concentrating resources on arresting and prosecuting all those who have turned our institutions to barter.
“This planned arrest is distasteful, nauseating, appalling and against every known convention of civility.
“In the words of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, the work of a journalist is not to report if Mr. A says the sky is black and Mr. B says it is white, but to inspect carefully and report the truth.
Mr. Fisayo has done that and he should never be rewarded with highhandedness.”
