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KADUNA, Nigeria (September 11, 2026) — Amnesty International has condemned a police raid on JKD Radio and Television, also known as Hamada Radio Network, at Millennium City in Kaduna, describing the operation as “unlawful and outrageous” after a contingent of heavily armed officers stormed the station and arrested its General Manager and a security guard.

According to accounts from the station’s management and Amnesty International, police officers arrived at the JKD TV premises seeking a staff member, journalist Zainab Salihu Yabagi, in connection with a video explainer the station had produced concerning Ibrahim Kabir Masari, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Political Affairs. The Kaduna State Police Command had earlier declared Yabagi wanted over the video. When officers were unable to immediately locate her, they arrested the station’s General Manager, identified in some reports as Charles Abah, along with a security guard, and took both men into custody at the Kaduna State Police Command.

Amnesty International said Yabagi’s husband had also been separately arrested by police in connection with the matter. In its statement, the organization said: “Amnesty International strongly condemns the unlawful and outrageous invasion of JKD TV Hamada Radio Network Millennium City Kaduna by a contingent of heavily armed police.” The group questioned the legal basis for detaining the station’s general manager and security guard over a journalist the police were seeking, and asked whether less intrusive measures could have been used to locate her instead. Amnesty called for the immediate release of those detained and for respect for press freedom and journalists’ right to carry out their professional duties without intimidation or harassment.

JKD TV/Hamada Radio Network’s management separately issued a statement describing the arrests and continued detention of its General Manager and security officer as “unacceptable,” calling the situation an unjust restriction of the men’s freedom and demanding their immediate release. The police have not publicly responded to the station’s account or to Amnesty’s statement as of this report.

Amnesty placed the incident within what it described as a broader pattern of pressure on independent media organizations and journalists in Nigeria. That characterization aligns with recent documentation from other press freedom monitors: the Committee to Protect Journalists reported in May that at least 91 journalists have been arrested, assaulted, or otherwise targeted since President Tinubu took office in 2023, while the Media Rights Agenda has separately tracked 141 incidents of harassment, detention, and violence against journalists and government critics over the same period, with police and the Department of State Services responsible for nearly half the cases.

Neither the Kaduna State Police Command nor the Nigeria Police Force at the national level has issued a public statement clarifying the legal basis for the raid or the arrests as of this report.

This is a developing story.