On August 8, 2025, plain-clothes police arrested Azuka Francisca Ogujiuba, publisher of the privately owned Media Room Hub news site, in an office where she had gone to conduct an interview, in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, and detained her at a nearby station for three days, the journalist told CPJ.
Lagos-based Ogujiuba said she had flown to Abuja on August 6, in response to a June 17 letter from the police’s Special Investigation Unit, asking her to come in for questioning about an unspecified matter.
Upon arrival at the unit’s Abuja offices on August 6, police questioned Ogujiuba about alleged cyberbullying and defamation, relating to her June publication of a court injunction over a disputed land sale, she said. The officers took her phone, searched it as she watched, and then took it out of her sight, she said. Ogujiuba said the police told her they were responding to a complaint from a party involved in the deal.
Ogujiuba said that she was released on administrative bail after five hours without being charged, given back her phone, and ordered to return two weeks later.
While in detention on August 8, officers again confiscated her phone, Ogujiuba told CPJ. She said they ordered her to take the article down and write an apology, both of which she did.
On August 11, Ogujiuba was freed and her phone was returned to her, following interventions from friends and political associates, she told CPJ.
As of September 2025, CPJ’s requests for comment via phone and messaging app to police spokesperson Benjamin Hundeyin did not receive any replies.