Release our reporter, Media Trust tells Niger Republic
The management of Media Trust Limited (MTL) has called on the Nigerien authorities in the town of Agadez to release Lawan Danjuma, the deputy editor of Daily Trust on Sunday who was arrested in Agadez on Saturday.
In a statement issued by the Editor-in-Chief of Media Trust, Mannir Dan-Ali, the company said it expected nothing short of the immediate release of the reporter.
Danjuma went to the town which sits on the edge of the Sahara desert to investigate how it serves as a staging post for thousands of youths from Nigeria and many other West African countries who make the perilous journey across the desert into Libya in their quest to go to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea.
“As an experienced cross border reporter, Lawan Danjuma sought and got the relevant documentation from the Kano Consulate office of the Nigerien embassy after stating his mission to Agadez. It was the same documentation that he used at different check points including the Nigeria/Niger border post at Kongolom, Katsina State and was only stopped and arrested on reaching Agadez.
“We see the arrest as an infringement of his right as an ECOWAS citizen and have since reached the Nigerien authorities to ask for the release of the reporter. We are shocked that more than 24 hours after the arrest he still is being held and his freedom is being curtailed,” the statement said.