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* Fighting for teachers owed 14 months’ salaries is among our ‘offence’
*State govt angry over report that it ‘plans’ to sell state’s liaison office
Publisher of Taraba Truth and Facts newspaper and CEO of Rock FM 92.3 Jalingo, Taraba State, Oloye Ayodele Samuel, has been remanded in the custody of the Taraba State Police Command in Jalingo despite meeting bail conditions.
Ayodele pleaded not guilty to the charges levelled against him at a Magistrate Court in Taraba on Tuesday 29th November.
In a statement, Lance Momodu, a staffer of Taraba Truth and Facts, said the conditions for Samuel’s release were N10 million and two Jalingo resident sureties with landed properties worth N5m each, which he met instantly.
“The bail conditions were met. It is quite unclear how the publisher has been remanded, but what is certain is the treacherous abuse of power by the state government,” Momodu said.
“It is a beyond shameful situation and we hope that the government have a quick change of heart and obey the court verdict.
“It is an absolute disappointment that a government seeks to cripple press freedom or, at the very least, freedom of expression in this modern time,” the statement reads.
The publisher had earlier released a statement about plans of the Taraba State government to arrest him before he was arraigned in court on Tuesday.
According to the statement earlier released, he said, “The Taraba State Government is angry with some of our reports,” specifically the report where the newspaper stated that Governor Darius Ishaku had “plans to sell the Taraba State liaison office”.
He also said that he was arrested by the police for “inciting the public against the governor and defamation of character”.
“Last Wednesday, we took up the plight of teachers who were owed 14 months salaries on a programme I anchored. I was told it infuriated the governor, and they started looking for our past reports in the newspaper, Taraba Truth and Facts,” he said.
Samuel had his youth service in Taraba State after his graduation from the Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ), Lagos and returned to establish a newspaper to practice his profession in the north eastern state.
Late 2021, he secured a license to run the first private FM station in Taraba State, named Rock FM which began transmission early 2022.
