- Safiu Kehinde
The Nigeria Police Force has revealed that a sum of N9bn was voted by some unnamed sponsors of the last End-Bad-Governance protest to cause mayhem in the country.
Olumuyiwa Adejobi, while speaking at a programme organised by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Reporting in Abuja on Wednesday, said many innocent young Nigerians risked their lives joining the protests not knowing that some people smiled to the banks from its proceeds.
The event was the 2024 edition of the Civic Space Guard annual conference with the theme: Al, Free Press Civic Space: Tools, Challenges and Future of Investigative Reporting.
Adejobi, while saying that many Nigerians are not aware of the real intelligence behind some of the actions taken by security agencies, said that when one Andrew was declared wanted and the police invaded the headquarters of the Nigeria Labour Congress, it was because of the information intercepted which showed that a man was in the NLC building whose main job was to orchestrate chaos and bloodshed in many parts of Nigeria.
“You people may be trying to protest; tell the government how you feel while people are capitalising on that to get money. And they actually got money! They got N9bn!” he said.
The Force PRO said the fund was disbursed to different parts of the country citing the instance of Kano where he said the person who got the money in Kano had a mandate to cause bloodbath.”
Adejobi advised journalists to be wary of how they carry out their assignments in ways to reduces cases of frictions between them and security agents.
He also advised media organisations to send only experienced personnel who are familiar with protests to cover them adding that inexperienced journalists often fall victims of protesters/security agents confrontations.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Centre, Mrs Motunrayo Alaka, while giving a summary of the report of the civic space at the event noted that the indices of attacks on journalists by security agents are unpalatable.
She said journalists are arrested in some of the unexpected places. She listed some of these places as campaign rallies, venues of press conferences, Government Houses, scenes of disasters and other places.
Alaka called for more synergy between journalists and the security agencies towards achieving better understanding in the course of their assignments.