Nigerian activist-journalist, Agba Jalingo, has described the country’s prison system as a cesspool of corruption, where with the right amount of money, inmates can access virtually anything – from drugs to sex.
Jalingo, publisher of CrossRiverWatch, made the revelations during an interview on Perspectives, an Arise TV programme, where he appeared alongside Media Room Hub publisher, Azuka Ogujiuba.
Ogujiuba had earlier narrated how police tracked and arrested her in Abuja, seizing her phone and locking her up in a smelly, mosquito-infested cell for three days over a “court order” she published.
Reacting, Jalingo said her ordeal was part of a worsening pattern of police abuse under the current Inspector-General of Police.
“Last year alone, 751 people were arrested over cybercrime allegations. That is the highest we have ever seen. The police are now used as private militias by the rich. If you have money and somebody writes about you, just pay the police and they’ll drag the journalist anywhere,” he said.
Jalingo, who has himself endured multiple unlawful arrests and detentions during the tenure of former Cross River State Governor Ben Ayade, recalled how policemen bundled him from Lagos in the boot of a Toyota Highlander for 26 hours, leaving him to defecate on himself twice.
He was later dumped at the anti-cultism unit in Calabar for 43 days, then thrown into prison for six months on trumped-up charges of terrorism, treason and attempting to overthrow then-President Muhammadu Buhari.
Although eventually discharged and acquitted, he said persecution never stopped.
He was later arraigned in Abuja under the controversial Section 24 of the Cybercrime Act, which he insists was designed “mainly to deal with journalists and dissenters.”
Jalingo further gave a damning account of life behind bars, exposing the rot in Nigerian prisons.
“There is no detention centre in Nigeria that you don’t pay. Bail is not free, prison visits are not free. Inmates who have money live large inside prison. They have phones, drugs, everything they want. The only things I didn’t see in jail were human parts and guns. Every other thing, including cocaine and sex, is available once you can pay,” he said.
The journalist added that prisons are graded by wealth, with “special cells” reserved for inmates who can bribe their way into comfort, while the poor are left to rot in overcrowded cells.
Ogujiuba, on her part, described her three-day detention as “a nightmare,” saying the cell was so filthy that she could not breathe, eat or sleep, while mosquito bites left her almost “running mad.”
Both journalists criticised the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) for failing to defend press freedom, accusing union leaders of being compromised or detached from the realities faced by reporters.
“Most people who get into union leadership become state agents. They’re no longer fighting for journalists. That is why government and police keep harassing us with impunity,” Jalingo said.
The duo insisted that criminal defamation laws and the Cybercrime Act must be scrapped, stressing that politicians use them as weapons to silence dissent and intimidate journalists into submission.
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