The Association of Cable Operators of Nigeria has called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to release nine of its employees arrested by the anti-corruption body on Saturday.
The ACON National Chairman, Kunle Afolabi, who made the call in an interview with reporters on Tuesday, alleged that some EFCC officers raided CAN TV, Metro TV and CTL offices in Port Harcourt, destroying their equipment and arresting nine employees.
Afolabi also alleged that the raid was instigated by a South African subscription collecting firm.
He lamented that CAN TV, CTL and Metro TV employees had been in detention for four days.
Describing their detention as illegal, the ACON chairman pointed out that the action of the EFCC must have been carried out in error.
He said the raid was based on the complaint that they (ACON) were running satellite television illegally, but insisted that they were only operating cable television (Multipoint Microwave Distribution System).
But the EFCC said in a statement they arrested five suspected fake satellite television operators, identifying the suspects as Davidson Onuoha, Emeka Samuel, Eze Amadi, Terkura Verinica and Evangelist Alex Umanah.
“Their arrest followed several weeks of intense intelligence on the suspects, their residences and operations by our operatives. The suspects were allegedly rebroadcasting the content of the Digital Satellite Television illegally in their companies,” the statement by spokesman for the EFCC, Wilson Uwujaren, said.
The statement added, “Items recovered from the suspects are GOTV decoders, StarTimes decoders, a DSTV decoder, Free to Air Decoder (Strong), Consat decoder and one direct decoder. Others are Encoder, Switches, Central Processing Units and monitors.”
It added that the suspects would be charged when investigations had been concluded.
Port Harcourt’s Zonal Head of the EFCC, Abdulrasheed Bawa, however, cautioned the public to be wary of the activities of illegal satellite operators.(Punch)
No comments:
Post a Comment