THE Lagos State Police Command has released Sodeeq Atanda, a senior investigative reporter with the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), after arresting and detaining him on Monday, December 22.
Atanda was arrested in Ikorodu and taken to the Force Headquarters in Obalende, Lagos. He was released a few minutes before midnight after backlash.
The police had detained Atanda’s wife, Adenike, and her nine-month-old baby at the Owutu Police Station in Ikorodu for more than five hours. According to FIJ, the officers used the detention to lure Atanda out, coercing his wife to call him and claim that their baby was ill.
Adenike said the police later drove her and the baby to a street close to their home and released them after Atanda was arrested.
“They handcuffed him and took him away. That was when they released my baby and me,” she said.
The arrest followed an earlier ‘dubious’ police invitation to Atanda on November 26 by a person who identified himself as ‘Omo Eleniyan’, claiming to be attached to the Inspector General of Police Monitoring Unit in Lagos.
In a WhatsApp message, Eleniyan said Atanda had been mentioned in a petition referred from the office of the Inspector General of Police. Atanda requested that the invitation be sent through FIJ’s official email address, but the request was declined and no formal invitation was sent to FIJ.
There was no further communication from the police until Monday, when officers arrested Atanda’s wife and child.
After his arrest, the reporter was taken to the Force Headquarters in Obalende.
According to FIJ, at about 11:12pm, the Investigating Police Officer handling the case informed FIJ’s founder and editor-in-chief, Fisayo Soyombo, that Atanda would be released. However, when Soyombo arrived at the station, the police asked Atanda to write a statement, which he declined.
Following further interventions by the president of the Nigerian chapter of the International Press Institute (IPI), Musikilu Mojeed, the police released Atanda unconditionally shortly before midnight.
Mojeed described the incident as unacceptable and said efforts would be made to ensure the police stop such actions against journalists.
Continued clampdown on journalists
The incident came amid heightened concerns over press freedom in Nigeria. On December 2, 2025, IPI Nigeria unveiled its newly established Nigeria Book of Infamy, a platform created to publicly name state actors involved in abuses against journalists.
The book, launched in Abuja by Vice President Kashim Shettima at the 2025 IPI Nigeria Conference, listed the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, alongside the governors of Niger and Akwa Ibom states, as its first entries.
IPI Nigeria said Egbetokun was listed over repeated cases of police excesses against journalists, despite several engagements with the police leadership.
Mojeed warned that harassment, intimidation and arbitrary arrests of journalists by security agencies had become widespread, contributing to Nigeria’s drop in the 2025 Global Press Freedom Index.
He said the arrest of journalists investigating corruption or reporting police misconduct, as well as the misuse of laws such as the Cybercrime Act, reflected a shrinking civic space and growing intolerance for press scrutiny.
Mojeed also warned that further attacks on journalists would be fiercely resisted, stressing that journalism is not a crime and that continued intimidation of the media undermines democracy and accountability.
Mustapha Usman is an investigative journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: musman@icirnigeria.com. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M