By Mathew Dadiya, Abuja

Cross River State Governor, Professor Ben Ayade has denied having a hand in the detention of an online publisher, Agba Jalingo at the Afokang Prison in the state saying that the journalist was arrested by the Federal Government for a treasonable offense.

Jalingo who has been in detention for over three months was arrested last year over the “Revolution Now” campaign launched by the Presidential Candidate of African Action Congress (AAC) in the 2019 general elections and Publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowere who was released in December.

Treason is a political crime committed against a state or government to which the person charged with treason owes a duty of allegiance, or It’s a violation of allegiance toward one’s country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one’s country by waging war against it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies.

Speaking with State House correspondents after a closed door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja, Ayade said that Jalingo was not arrested as a journalist but as a politician because he is the state Chairman of AAC who wanted to overthrow a democratic government.

Governor Ayade said that the journalist’s problem was with the Federal Government and not the state government. 

The journalist led the RevolutionNow Protest in Cross River State. 

His arrest, subsequent incarceration and trial has been condemned by individuals, right groups and civil society organizations with Amnesty International declaring him alongside #RevolutionNow convener, Omoyele Sowore and pro democracy activist, Olawale Bakare as prisoners of conscience.

Governor Ayade has been accused several times of instigating the arrest, detention and trial of Jalingo, for treason but the governor had on many occasions denied being involved in his ordeal. 

The governor explained that Jalingo is his brother from the same Obudu LGA in Cross River, and helped fund the start-up of the online publication.

According to him, “The case is between Agba Jalingo and the federal government of Nigeria. On his Facebook page, he posted an ambitious programme as … Please don’t get it wrong, Agba Jalingo is not just from Cross River State, he’s not just from Obudu, where I also come from, he’s my brother

“On his Facebook page, he sent pictures where he was being teargassed at the revolution march in Lagos. His own pictures, posted by himself and when Sowore was being arrested, he went back to his Facebook to post that the revolution has just started, ‘we will continue this battle until revolution works’. He admitted this in Court.

“In court, it is Federal Government versus Agba Jalingo, not Cross River State. The same Agba Jalingo who is in jail, I send him money. I called my Chief Press Secretary and others and said that journalists will not understand that Agba Jalingo is the State Chairman of Sowore’s party, from the time he moved into politics, he became a politician.

“You are seeing him as a journalist, but he’s not, he’s the chairman of Sowore’s party (African Action Congress) in Cross River State so he’s a politician. He has a primary calling, which is journalism. Please ask Agba Jalingo, that CrossRiverWatch, the first person to give him money to set up the office was myself, his official vehicle, it was me.

“I don’t have to list all of these, he knows that I have funded and supported him, but journalism stops where blackmail becomes part of your strategy.

“Today you need something, then Ayade is a good man and you start writing all the good things, but if I take my phone and show you our Whatsapp communication, you will call me a godly man. Today I need money to set up a computer school, tomorrow I need money to feed my birds, the other day I need to be INNOSON’s sole distributor in Cross River State, I do all that. 

“But when I don’t get a thing right, you go to the social media and write something as careless as Governor Ayade has taken N500 million to Russia. You impugned my father’s name, my character, my family name, for just a personal request that I’ve not met, out of many that I have met. Please for once, put yourselves in my shoes. All I simply did was to stay out of the issue.

“He’s in court for treason, a state does not have power to try anyone for treason, it’s not me. Agba Jalingo is not just a journalist, he is the chairman of a political party and so once he started the campaign to overthrow the government of President Buhari, he ceased to be seen from the point of journalist because he has become the state chairman of a party.

“I have an intellectual background as a professor, I will stand with journalists at all times and I will never prosecute somebody, but if you ask Agba Jalingo today, I’m the one working with his lawyers for his freedom, I’m the one sustaining him and sending upkeeps, the same man who once called me a golden brother, that I’ve stood with him through tough times.

“When he started publishing damaging articles against the state, I called him as a brother, I said look, the former governor told me that you so much blackmailed him, that his wife was detained because she was involved in child trafficking. He had to resort to settling him monthly. When journalism gets to that level, it becomes very dangerous and I don’t want you people to support a course that is not fair. 

“I am of the opinion that Agba should be released because I think he was just youthfully excited, but let him not use the power of the pen, let him not use journalism and hide to blackmail, chastise lampoon, destroy another person just for personal economic benefit”