{"id":81336,"date":"2026-01-09T08:07:52","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T08:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=81336"},"modified":"2026-01-09T08:07:52","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T08:07:52","slug":"journalists-issue-ultimatum-over-attack-on-arise-tv-crew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2026\/01\/09\/journalists-issue-ultimatum-over-attack-on-arise-tv-crew\/","title":{"rendered":"Journalists Issue Ultimatum Over Attack on Arise TV Crew"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Onyeanya Immaculata<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Newspaper publishers, media executives, and journalists in Rivers State have given the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, and the state Commissioner of Police, Olugbenga Adepoju, a two-week ultimatum to investigate the attack on an Arise TV crew in Port Harcourt or face a boycott of police activities.<\/p>\n<p>The warning was issued on Thursday by members of the Port Harcourt Press, who said failure to identify, arrest, and prosecute those responsible would compel journalists and media organisations to withdraw coverage of police activities in the state.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking for the group, publisher of the Port Harcourt Telegraph and former lawmaker, Ogbonna Nwuke, described the attack as a serious threat to press freedom and public safety, especially ahead of the 2027 general elections.<\/p>\n<p>The incident occurred on January 2, when suspected thugs disrupted a live Arise TV interview with a former Commissioner for Employment Generation and Empowerment, Dr. Leloonu Nwibubassa, at a hotel in Port Harcourt.<\/p>\n<p>Broadcast equipment was reportedly seized during the attack but later recovered by the police.<\/p>\n<p>Nwuke accused the police of inaction, alleging that no arrests had been made despite the identification of some suspects.<\/p>\n<p>He warned that continued silence could suggest compromise and demanded the arrest and prosecution of both the attackers and their alleged sponsors within the two-week deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Onyeanya Immaculata Newspaper publishers, media executives, and journalists in Rivers State have given the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, and the state Commissioner of Police, Olugbenga Adepoju, a two-week ultimatum to investigate the attack on an Arise TV crew in Port Harcourt or face a boycott of police activities. The warning was issued [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":81337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81338,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81336\/revisions\/81338"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}