The General Editor of an online newspaper, First News, Segun Olatunji, has resigned.
This is just as the news platform’s management apologised to Femi Gbajabiamila, President Bola Tinubu’s chief of staff, for a story published on its platform on January 29, 2024.
Olatunji’s article indicting the former Speaker of the House of Representatives was entitled “How Gbajabiamila attempted to corner $30 billion and 66 houses traced to Sabiu.”
The report led to his arrest and detention in an underground cell by the Defence Intelligence Agency, eliciting wild condemnation from the Nigerian Guild of Editors, the Nigeria Union of Journalists, the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria, and the International Press Institute, which eventually led to his release.
In a statement on Wednesday, the management said it had discovered the story contained “falsehoods and fabricated stories handed out to us as facts by a misleading source, which was highly negligent on our part and for which we deeply tender an unreserved apology to the Chief of Staff to the President.
“As a responsible media organisation, we wish to state very categorically that we have no malicious intent towards the person of the Chief of Staff to the President or his office. Hence, our decision to tender an unreserved apology and the need to publish a retraction of the said story.”
However, Olatunji resigned as editor swiftly, stressing that the truth about the matter would come to light soon.
His resignation letter, sighted by our correspondent, read, “In view of the latest developments regarding the Gbajabiamila story and the stance of the company’s management, I hereby tender my resignation as the General Editor of First News.
“It has become imperative for me to resign my appointment for the safety of myself and my family. However, I want to state that in no distant time, the truth will come out, and then it’ll be my word against theirs,” he said.
He further appreciated the management for allowing him to contribute his quota as the editor in the past four years while urging them to settle his one-year outstanding salaries in due course.
Olatunji was abducted in his home in the Iyana Odo, Abule Egba area of Lagos State in March, and his arrest set panic among the staff members of the news platform.
His wife, Abiodun Olatunji, said the armed men numbering 10 arrived at their residence a few minutes after 6 pm and whisked her husband away without leaving any information behind as to where they were taking him.
She said her husband’s abductors reached for his phone and seized it immediately after they arrived before bundling him into a van like a common criminal and zooming off.