Journalist Beaten To Stupor Over Facebook Post

Charles Otu, an Ebonyi-based journalist was at the weekend assaulted in Abakaliki, the state capital, over a controversial Facebook post. Otu, who is the publisher of Conscience, a local newspaper had used his newspaper and Facebook to “expose the failures of a state government in many sectors and critically analyze its programmes and projects.”

“I was asked by the group to write a statement that I was rescued by the Ekubaraoha Youth Assembly from a mob that was attacking me. The thugs who accosted me at the Vanco Junction arrived in a 16-seater Toyota bus with the inscription of Ekubaraoha Youth Assembly.

“They accused me of being a threat to a state government and threatened to silence me unless I signed a written undertaking never to write anything against the state government. I collapsed at the police station having lost consciousness due to the severe beating they gave me but I was revived at the emergency ward of the Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki,” Otu said.