The journalists were released on Tuesday afternoon.
The two journalists released on Tuesday by the State Security Service, SSS, after being held in detention for eight days have reunited with their families in Kaduna.
Checks by PREMIUM TIMES also showed that the journalists, Awwal Musa and Aliyu Saleh, might address a press conference in Kaduna on Wednesday to intimate the media of what transpired between them and the SSS.
This was made known by a staff of Al-Mizan on Tuesday evening over the telephone.
“As soon as they got back to Kaduna, they had wanted to go to the NUJ and meet with the leadership of the Union, but we prevailed on them to go home and see their families first, after which they will talk to the NUJ tomorrow,” the source said. He requested not to be named because he was authorised by the paper to speak on the paper.
Also, the lawyer to the duo, Sadiq Marafa, said that the SSS actually called him Monday to say investigation had gone far and “there is the need to slow down on the unnecessary media attention that the matter is getting.”
He however said he was not informed that the journalists would be released on Tuesday.
“They just released them without saying anything to us. Right now we don’t even know if it is the end of the case or they will be expected to go back at some time, all this will be known by tomorrow,” he added.
The Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Chidi Odinkalu, who liaised with the SSS to get the journalists released also said in an text message response to our enquiry that “The NHRC exists to try to sew that public institutions treat Nigerians lawfully and with dignity,” adding that “the important thing here is that families have been re-united. And a situation that should not have arisen is corrected.”
Meanwhile, Messrs. Saleh and Musa also visited neighbouring Zaria, after reuniting with their families, to meet with the high echelons of the Muslim Brotherhood in Nigeria. The group is believed to own the Al-Mizan newspaper.
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