Men of the Nigeria police force, on Thursday raided the head office of one of Nigeria’s most popular online newspaper, Premium Times, in Abuja, and arrested its publisher, Dapo Olorunyomi.

The judiciary correspondent of the Newspaper, Evelyn Okakwu, was also arrested alongside the publisher.

Reports say that plain-clothed police officers arrived the office premises of Premium Times at about 5pm on Thursday, saying that they were acting on a complaint filed by the Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai.

Reacting to the development, the Editor-in-Chief of Premium Times,Musikilu Mojeed, condemned the raid as an attempt to “muzzle the press.”

“They should stop deluding themselves that they can muzzle the press and intimidate Premium Times,” Mojeed said.

“They should know that our loyalty lies with our readers and the Nigerian people who have a right to know.”

He maintained that the newspaper will continue “to discharge its responsibilities in line with global best practices, social responsibility and patriotism, even at great risk to our personal liberties.”

Recall that the army authorities had called out Premium Times on several occasions, accusing the online paper of reporting only “negative stories” about the Military.

The theatre commander of the counter-insurgency operations in Nigeria’s North East, Lucky Irabor, an Army Major General had during one press conference referred to Premium Times as“Boko Haram Friendly.”

In a most recent spat between the army authorities and the online newspaper, the army demanded that Premium Times withdrew a number of stories it had published, which the authorities claimed were “false and fabricated”.

The Nigerian Army threatened to initiate legal actions against the paper if it failed to retract the stories “within seven days”.

But Premium Times, in its reply said it stood by its stories and demanded an apology from the army authorities.

Thursday’s invasion of the office premises of the online newspaper follows a rather ugly trend of suppression of the media which is gradually becoming the norm under the Muhammadu Buhari led administration.

Only last week, two prominent journalists were arrested by the police in Lagos and Abuja on account of petitions written against them by persons they were investigating.