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Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The Presidency has threatened to release a recording of the meeting late Isa Funtua had with Sahara Reporters founder, Omoyele Sowore while he was in the Department of State Security (DSS) detention facility.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, in a statement accused Sowore of twisting facts to fit his narratives.
Sowore had claimed that he ‘clashed’ with Funtua during a reconciliatory meeting which had Nduka Obaigbena, Vanguard Publisher, Sam Amuka and Garba Shehu. Sowore, has said the trio has come to ‘negotiate’ terms for his release.
But Shehu in his reaction accused Sowore of posturing, noting that Funtua only intervened on personal grounds not on behalf of government.
“Let’s get the facts straight on the meeting with Sowore in SSS detention. First, it is important to state that the meeting was not instructed by the government. Nobody sent anybody to go and ‘negotiate’ Sowore’s freedom as he put it. The late Malam Isma’ila, on his own, called me to ask that I broker a meeting with him and two others with the SSS, which they agreed to. It is important that I state that it was the force of Malam Isma’ila’s argument that made the meeting possible.”
“Vanguard Newspapers publisher, Sam Amuka and ThisDay Publisher and President, Nigerian Press Organisation, Nduka Obaigbena, all agreed that Sowore was a “rascal”, who had used his newspaper “to abuse all of us,” but agreed, nonetheless to go and press for his release. As the late Isma’ila put it, although he (Sowore) got into his problems due to politics, not journalism the fact of him being a publisher imposed a duty on the media leaders to seek ways of making him free.”
