Police Clamp Down On The Media In Akwa Ibom.

Jonathan, Mark and Akpabio

Less than 24 hours to the governorship election in Akwa Ibom State, the police in the state raided a private printing press in Uyo on Sunday night and carted away production materials and several copies of some local newspapers while they were on production. Some journalists were arrested and later released in the morning.

But the director of the printing press and two of his staffers are still being detained in an unknown location by the police.
The raided printing press, Aswill is in Akpan Etuk Street in the heart of Uyo, the capital of Akwa Ibom State, and the affected papers are Global Concord, Pivot News and Weekly Insight.

Mr. Clifford Thomas, the publisher and editor-in-chief of Pivot News confirmed that the police arrested him and three other journalists who work in the production team of his paper, but that they were later released. He said the police came in four Toyota hilux trucks, and said they had orders from the deputy commissioner of police to stop some newspapers from getting to the newsstand because of suspicion that they were publishing subversive materials against the Akwa Ibom State government.

“They forcefully took away all our production plates, we are now thinking of how to start afresh for this week publication. The police action is highly repressive and it is condemnable,” Clifford Thomas said. Mr. David Augustine, the editor-in-chief of Weekly Insight said though the police did not take away the production materials of his paper, that the raid has affected their plans to hit the newsstand early because they had already scheduled to print the newspaper in the raided press.

Towards Tuesday Elections; Akpabio meets Akwa Ibom Press distributes N100,000 each
 In what seems to be the final touches to the massively rig tomorrow's election, Governor Godswill Akpabio is bribing interest groups to compromise them ahead of the gubernatorial elections in  Akwa Ibom state. Governor  Akpabio continued his bribery spree from the state treasury as he met on Saturday night with journalists in the state.


The Saturday night meeting was coordinated by Mr Aniekan Umanah, Akpabio’s Commissioner for Information who personally distributed N100,000 cash to over 200 people who paraded themselves as journalists.

SaharaReporters gathered that roll call of the attendees was taken to ensure that everyone present was captured in the bribery scheme which involved  journalists and impostors alike who took advantage of the opportunity to line their pockets.

 It was gathered that the cash disbursement was to shut them up even though press men stationed in the state capital are largely compromised especially since last year when the governor hosted the annual meeting of the National Union of Journalists n the state. Some officials of the body were kidnapped in Abia state with huge sums of money given to them by Governor Akpabio.

The nocturnal meeting, held at Akpan Isemin hall within the Governor’s lodge dragged late into the early hours of Sunday .
 The Bribe recipients took turns to collect the fresh mint notes and disappeared in small groups to execute their brief.
 The use of state funds in prosecuting Akpabio’s re-election bid has been going on since he indicated interest to run for a second term in office.