On Monday, December 12, 2022, the Board of Editors of ThisDay Newspaper and Arise TV announced that it had received two separate requests from top members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) campaign organization to fire two news reporters.
The APC requested that the board remove ThisDay Editor Shaka Momodu and The Morning Show co-host on Arise News Rufai Oseni from their current positions “to stop the attacks or to avoid a future Bola Tinubu presidency.”
In a joint statement captioned, “Tinubu and ThisDay/Arise Media Group and the Attack on Free Speech”, the media organisation said they would not give in to pressure from the ruling party, APC.
“We also note that two senior APC campaign officials had separately requested that we move THISDAY Editor and columnist, Shaka Momodu, and The Morning Show co-host on ARISE News, Rufai Oseni, from their current positions to stop the attacks or get a reprieve from a future Tinubu presidency.
“The Boards of Editors of This Day Newspapers and the Arise News Channel would like to state without equivocation that we do not fire journalists because of their views.
“Facts are sacred and opinions free is the age-old dictum to which all free-thinking men subscribe.
“We allow our editors the freedom to air their opinions unfettered and have created The Office of the Ombudsman to take any complaints and discipline any abuse of office by any of our staff members,” Arise TV statement partly read.
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Personal attacks on both reporters have increased since the death of one Mueez Adegboyega Akande, a Tinubu associate mentioned by US authorities as being involved in a drug trafficking investigation of the APC candidate in 1993, was published in the ThisDay edition of Nov. 18, 2022.
