- Organisation: Peoples Gazette
- Case: Threat
- Culprit: Nigeria’s National Intelligence Agency (NIA)
- Country: Nigeria
- City: Abuja
At around 1 p.m. on January 10, four officers of Nigeria’s National Intelligence Agency (NIA) entered the Peoples Gazette office in Utako, a district within Nigeria’s capital Abuja, ignored the security guard’s attempts to stop them, and searched for the website’s managing editor, Samuel Ogundipe, and reporter Hillary Essien, according to a Peoples Gazette report from that day and Ogundipe who spoke to CPJ by phone. Neither Ogundipe nor Essien were in the office, and the officers left shortly after, according to the report. The officers brought a letter signed by someone named Armstrong Machunga, which did not disclose who Machunga is or their role, only that he was writing on behalf of the NIA’s director general, Ahmed Abubakar Rufai, demanding that the Peoples Gazette produce the name of several unnamed sources who signed a letter that was central to a December 22, 2021, news report that alleged Rufai was not qualified to head the agency, according to Ogundipe and the letter, which CPJ reviewed.