Nigerian police on Tuesday arrested five senior journalists and two other officials of a Lagos-based private newspaper, the daily said in a statement.
The Nation newspaper said in the statement that it believed the arrest was in connection with its front page report last week on a “secret” letter allegedly written by ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo to President Goodluck Jonathan.
“It is believed that it was not unconnected with the October 4 cover story of The Nation, entitled ‘Obasanjos secret letter to Jonathan stirs anger. Ex-president seeks sack of PTDF chief, four others’,” the statement said.
There is yet no official police confirmation of the alleged arrest of the journalists, carried out in Abuja and Lagos.
In the purported letter, published in-texto on the front page of the newspaper, it was alleged that Obasanjo had asked Jonathan to dismiss officials of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF).
Obasanjo had allegedly recommended some names to replace these officials in the PTDF.
But the former Nigerian leader, speaking to journalists in Lagos the following day, denied writing such a letter.
The government set up PTDF to serve as a vessel for the development of indigenous manpower and technology transfer or acquisition in the petroleum industry.
Obasanjo threatened legal action against The Nation newspaper but the daily said that it stood by its story on the letter.
“I think they want to press charges of forgery against the newspaper,” the editor-in-chief of The Nation, Victor Ifijeh, told AFP.