Operatives of the Intelligence Response Team of the Inspector General of Police have arrested at least seven Imo newspaper vendors, distribution agents in Owerri for selling newspapers that had stories about the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB.
They were reportedly arrested on Monday morning at their base located at Number 5 Rotibi Street, Douglas Road, Owerri, as the circulation of the day’s newspapers was ongoing.
Other vendors, who escaped the arrest, told Journalists that the heavily armed police operatives accused them of circulating newspaper publications that had stories on IPOB, and therefore “anti-state.”
Some of the vendors and distribution agents reportedly arrested by the IGP’s team are Nnamso Okoro, Nelson Enyiama, Blessing Isinwa, Onyebuchi Iwundu, and Michael.
The state circulation manager of the New Telegraph Newspaper, Chuks Ugwuibe, had been arrested in Orlu on Tuesday last week by security operatives while taking his weekly returns from vendors. He is still being held in an undisclosed cell.
The police authorities had yet to response to this clampdown of the free Press as at the time of filing this report.
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