Police detain publisher over alleged false publication

Barely two weeks after police stray bullets killed Precious Owolabi, a youth corps member reporting for Channels Television, another journalist, Oke Epia, editor –in-chief of Order Paper has been detained by police attached to National Assembly.

Epia, who honoured the police invitation over an alleged false publication in his paper is been interrogated by detectives at the police post located at the rear entrance of the National Assembly.

Journalists who visited to know what was happening to their colleague were politely asked to remain outside until the questioning is concluded.

The police at the National Assembly had in a letter dated July 26 invited Epia to appear today at the police post, informing him that the invitation is a fact-finding one.

Epia in a statement, however, believes that the invitation is part of attacks on his media house by Tony Nwulu, a former member of the House of Representatives.

The relationship with the former legislator started after a publication prior to the 2019 general elections. The social media post profiled House members vying for either governorship or deputy governorship positions.

In profiling Nwulu, Order Paper said it reached out to the lawmaker to account for “missing funds and projects for zonal intervention projects in the 2016 budget,” a claim he is yet to respond to.’

In his reaction on Twitter, Nwulu branded the newspaper as fake, alleging that it never made an assessment of his stewardship.

“Fake medium. No sensible person should take you guys serious. Tribal bigots; at least your faceless promoters should try running for office and effect the change they desire and not just being pathetic armchair critics hiding under a useless medium to extort,” he tweeted on his handle @tonynwulu.

Before his current travail, Epia had raised an alarm last Friday that he and his colleagues have received threats to their lives.

He alleged that he and other journalists in Order Paper have received threat calls directly from Nwulu and strange calls and text messages from persons some of whom refused to identify themselves.

However, as at the time of filling this report, Epia was still at the presidential gate annex police station and the police bluntly told him he would be detained.