Police detectives said to be the Inspector General of Police (IGP) team from the force headquarters, Abuja, on Tuesday arrested four journalists at the Warri Correspondents Chapel of the Delta State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).

SaharaReporters reliably gathered that the police detectives, who stormed the Press Centre of the Warri NUJ, along Gbiaye Street in Warri at about 3:45 pm, arrested Matthew Omonigho of the Daily Post Online over a yet-to-be-disclosed offence.

It was gathered that shortly after the arrest of the journalist, the leadership of the NUJ in Warri immediately dispatched Edeki Egafe of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Francis Sadhere of Business Day and Christopher Odomhe, a freelance journalist to the Warri Area Command to ascertain the offence for which Omonigho was arrested.

On arrival at the area command, the three Journalists, Egafe, Sadhere and Odomhe were immediately arrested and detained.

Our correspondent gathered that the mobile phones of the four journalists were immediately confiscated by the IGP detective team.

The chairman of the Warri NUJ, Okies Vicky, who was at the area command to know why the four Journalists were been arrested and detained, was not allowed to see his detained colleagues till about 9:30 pm when he left the premises.

Chairman of the Delta State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Michael Ikeogwu, frowned on the way and manner security operatives are going after journalists in the state.

As of the time of this report, the IGP detective team has not given any reason for the arrest and detention of the four journalists.

Efforts to reach the state Commissioner of Police, Hafiz Inuwa, proved abortive as calls to his mobile phone were not responded to.

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Source: SaharaReporters