Anti-graft agency slams ThisDay boss, Obaigbena, Newspaper owners

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In a recent statement by Wilson Uwujaren, Obaigbena and other owners of Newspapers in Nigeria have been accused of deploying their “platform to pursue personal interests.”

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission made this known on Monday, June 19, 2017 while reacting to an advert which NPAN placed in THISDAY and Leadership Newspapers Monday, condemning the June 12 presence of anti-graft operatives at The Sun office.

The anti-graft agency said the Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria, NPAN, wrongly accused it of attempting to stifle free press in raiding the head office of The Sun Newspapers last week.

“The manner of the invasion tends to suggest that the EFCC was out on a self-help mission, a voyage to intimidate journalists, criminalise journalism and cower free speech,” Uwujaren quoted the advertorial as stating.

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Uwujaren took the president of NPAN boss, Nduka Obaigbena up on the motive of the association saying that he was trying to seize the situation as a way of getting back at the agency’s acting chairman, Ibrahim Magu.

“If the EFCC has committed any sin against Obaigbena and some members of NPAN, it was in carrying out its statutory mandate of fighting corruption and ensuring that impunity was checked. It is no secret that some NPAN members are yet to forgive the Commission for the money recovered from them in the course of the ONSA investigation.

"Nigeria is bigger than any individual and NPAN must be mindful not to allow members to hijack its platform to pursue personal interests,” Uwujaren said.

In 2016, Obaigbena was briefly detained by the EFCC over allegations that he benefited from the $2.1 billion arms purchase scandal that rocked the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

Though Obaigbena admitted receiving up to N670 million from Sambo Dasuki, the former National Security Adviser, he said a large chunk of it was meant as compensation for the 2012 Boko Haram attack at THISDAY bureau in Abuja.