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Monday, 07 January 2019 05:21

Security agents take over Daily Trust’s Lagos, Kaduna offices

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Security agents have taken over Bureau office of Daily Trust newspapers in Lagos, the medium said in a tweet Sunday evening.

“Security agents have taken over the bureau office of @daily_trust in Lagos in what has so far been a coordinated siege on the news outlet,” the tweet reads.

“It comes hours after armed soldiers invaded @daily_trust bureau in Maiduguri and its head office in Abuja, seizing computers #siegeondailytrust.”

One of the editors of the paper said security agents also took over the newspaper’s office in Kaduna.

The Kaduna office served as the first head office of the newspapers when production began in 1998.

Armed soldiers had on Sunday raided and sealed two offices of Daily Trust newspaper in Abuja and Maiduguri, Borno State.

The soldiers arrested the regional editor, Mr Uthman Abubakar, and one of the paper’s reporters, Mr Ibrahim Sawab, during the raid.

More than two dozens of armed soldiers in five pickup trucks sealed up the main office of the paper in Utako District of Abuja, and seized computers and other items, witnesses said.

In Maiduguri, armed soldiers, backed by agents of State Security Services and Civil Defence Corps, also sealed the paper’s regional office along Maiduguri-Baga Road. They arrested the two journalists named above.

The raid happened hours after the newspaper published a report detailing how the Nigerian military assembled troops and equipment in preparation for a massive operation to retake Baga and five other towns in Borno from Boko Haram.

Baga was seized in the last two weeks by members of Islamic State in West African Province (ISWAP), the faction of Boko Haram affiliated to ISIS.

PT