Lanre Arogundade is the executive director of International Press Centre, an organization that trains journalists and fights for their rights
Human rights activist and journalist, Lanre Arogundade, is being detained at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport and denied entry into the country after a trip to The Gambia.
According to an online newspaper, Sahara Reporters, Lanre Arogundade left Nigeria for The Gambia on January 30, 2022, to train Gambian journalists on sensitive reporting with the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and upon his return, they flagged his passport and may have deactivated it as they did to human rights activist, Omoyele Sowore.
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The online newspaper said Arogundade’s lawyer, Olumide Fusika, said, “I’m in touch with him. It’s seeming like that, like Sowore’s. His citizenship of Nigeria has been cancelled by the Department of State Services.”
Confirming the detention, Arogundade wrote on Facebook, “This is me at the DSS office at International Airport Lagos where I’m being held or detained against my wish. I have just returned from Banjul where I went to train Gambian journalists on Conflict sensitive journalism. Ever since the days of military rule I get molested by DSS and Immigration at the airport. This nonsense has to stop!”
Lanre Arogundade is one of the vocal voices against the Muhammadu Buhari-led Nigerian government in the recent past, especially on the issues of the electoral bill and the Twitter ban.
His organisation and others had only weeks ago made a call on the National Assembly to prioritise the conclusion of the Electoral Bill during the legislators’ first sitting when it resumed from recess.
In Abuja at a news conference tagged: “Civil Society Statement on the need for the National Assembly to Act with Dispatch on the Electoral Bill on Resumption from Recess,” Lanre Arogundade and others such as Yiaga Africa, Centre for Citizens with Disability (CCD), The Albino Foundation, CLEEN Foundation, Institute for Media and Society (IMS), and Nigerian Women Trust Fund (NWTF), had made the call.
The online newspaper says the Buhari regime is notorious for silencing critics and harassing anti-government voices as only on January 12, 2021, it was reported that the government deactivated the biometric identification of Sowore.
The documents deactivated included the activist’s national identity card, permanent voter card, passport and driver’s licence.
As a result, Sowore was not able to use any of the national documents to carry out any transaction within and outside the country as the cards could not be read biometrically.
It says President Buhari’s regime did not give any explanation for the move.
Sahara Reporters says after public outcries and condemnation greeted the deactivation, the government was forced to reactivate the identity cards on February 1, 2022, as also confirmed by Sowore.