The federal government has directed the military to vacate the premises of Daily Trust’s offices in Maiduguri, Abuja and Lagos.
Presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, announced the president’s directive in a tweet on Sunday night.
“The Federal Government has directed the military to vacate the premises of @daily_trust and the order has been complied with.
“Issues between the military and the newspaper as they affect the coverage of the war in the Northeast will be resolved through dialogue,” Mr Shehu wrote.
About two dozen armed soldiers in five Hilux vehicles on Sunday invaded the headoffice of the newspaper at the Utako district of Abuja.
They asked all the staff to leave after which they sealed the premises.
The Army had earlier raided the Maiduguri regional office of the newspaper in similar fashion and arrested the regional editor, Uthman Abubakar, and one of the paper’s reporters, Ibrahim Sawab.
Daily Trust in a tweet said its regional office in Lagos had also been taken over by security agents.
The raids on Daily Trust happened hours after the newspaper published a report detailing how the Nigerian military assembled troops and equipment in preparation for a massive operation to retake Baga and five other towns in Borno from Boko Haram.
Baga was seized in the last two weeks by members of the Islamic State in West African Province (ISWAP), the faction of Boko Haram affiliated to ISIS.
