Renowned investigative journalist and founder of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), Fisayo Soyombo, has asserted that the reason controversial activist and social media critic, Martins Vincent Otse, also known as VeryDarkMan (VDM), was arrested was to torture and silence him.
Naijaonpoint reports that VeryDarkMan was arrested by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) last week at a Guaranty Trust Bank branch in Abuja.
In a statement on Tuesday on its social media handles, the anti-graft agency said it arrested the activist over a series of petitions bordering on sundry issues of alleged financial crimes raised against him.
The Agency stated that the Commission is aware of several unguarded attacks by VDM against its operations.
According to the EFCC, while such conduct is condemnable, his arrest was not informed by such attacks.
However, during Channels Television’s The Morning Brief on Tuesday, Soyombo said no one, regardless of “what we classify them,” should be adopted by state agents.
He said the agency was only trying to intimidate and silence the activist.
“I won’t call VDM’s case citizen journalism, I’ll call it activism, not to take anything away from him and of course, no one, regardless of what we classify them, should be adopted by state agents.
“If you make an arrest and a court is within a 100km radius of the police cell, the person has to be arraigned within 24 hours and if the closest court is more than 100km away, then it has to be done within 48 hours, clear breach of the law,” Soyombo said.
“The intention is to intimidate him, to silence him, to punish him.
“I don’t feel punished when you detain me. I don’t like the fact that someone thinks that they can stop you on the part of truth just by punishing you, just by detaining you. It doesn’t work that way,” Soyombo noted.