The Kaduna State Police Command has arrested the state correspondent of Leadership Newspaper, Midat Joseph.

Reports say Joseph was arrested early on Wednesday from his house in Kaduna and was taken to the Metro Police Station where he was detained briefly before being moved to the State’s Criminal Investigation Department, CID, on Thursday.

The journalist has reportedly been moved to Abuja.

Spokesperson of the Police in Kaduna State, Aliyu Usman, confirmed the arrest but declined to give further details as according to him, investigations into the matter are still ongoing.

According to unconfirmed reports, the journalist, who is also the Chairman of Correspondents chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, Kaduna council, was arrested for an alleged offence that is not related to his job as a reporter.

Joseph was reportedly holding a discussion with some people; the discussion was said to be centred on issues relating to the funding of arms import for the defence of the people of Southern Kaduna but unknown to them they were being recorded.

“What he did does not relate to him as a journalist. He was arrested over a very serious issue with evidences gathered,” online newspaper Premium Times quoted a source as saying.

Efforts by members of the state council of NUJ to secure the journalist’s bail were unsuccessful.

Recall that another journalist working with Vanguard newspaper was arrested two months ago by the Kaduna Police, on allegations of authoring false story of a herdsmen attack in Southern Kaduna.

Binniyat had reported that herdsmen killed five students of the Kaduna State College of Education, but the school later issued a statement saying such incident never took place.

The journalist was later charged to court and was granted bail to the tune of N200,000 and a surety in like sum.

Reports say Binniyat has since been directed to embark on compulsory leave, while another journalist has been drafted in his place.