By Albert Akpor
A female crime/security reporter with the NEXT newspapers, Miss Patience Agbo, was yesterday, subjected to all forms of inhuman treatment by some armed soldiers at the Ikeja Cantonment for attempting to take pictures of some shanty shops at the mammy market that were razed by fire weekend.

The journalist  had arrived the barracks to do a follow-up story on the probable cause of the inferno only to be accosted by some fierce looking armed soldiers and promptly taken to an unidentified spot.

She was said to have been searched to her panties, her handsets collected while all the exposures in her camera including other important stories other than the fire in the market deleted.

It was gathered  that she was later brought out of a dark room where she was kept for several hours on the order of the commander of the cantonment after the public relations officer of the cantonment, Major Olaolu Daudu,  contacted him over the matter.

According to sources, the Commander who was not in the state at the time, reportedly ordered that she should not be allowed to leave the barracks until he arrives.

Meanwhile, when the commander later arrived, the journalist was said to have been subjected to another rounds of interrogation for “trespass” and was mandated to write an apology letter before  she was asked to go.

When contacted, Major Olaolu Daudu who confirmed the detention maintained that the reporter acted against professional ethics.  He said he did not know the journalist in question adding that when the inferno occurred several newsmen called him and when they came he took them to the area where they took pictures before they were granted interview.

“That girl did not behave like a journalist.  Even in your own house, nobody has the right to enter without prior information.   The barracks is a military zone and before you enter as a civilian, you have to seek and receive the approval of the commander or whoever is in charge.

We have nothing to hide about the fire. When my commander finally met with her he told her that but for the cordial relationship between the media and the military, he would have handed her over to the police for prosecution.  Even when she was going, I asked if she was still interested in the story but she said no.”