Investigative journalist David Hundeyin has reacted to being named an accomplice in the trial of whistleblower Isaac Tamunobifiri also known as PIDOM.
Currently in prison custody, PIDOM is accused of cybercrime, money laundering, leaking classified and restricted documents, fraud, sedition and tax evasion
Mr Hundeyin told News Central Television on Wednesday that the move by the police are attempts to involve him in the criminal investigation to discredit his international refugee status and put him on an Interpol notice list.
The journalist also claimed that in 2023, the National Intelligence Agency made several attempts to abduct him from overseas for exposing the ills of some top governmental functionaries, adding that the attempts were in Ghana and Kenya before he moved to the United Kingdom for safety.
“There were several attempts by the National Intelligence Agency to abduct me. They also tried to render me stateless. I even tried to change my country twice. There was an attempt to abduct me from Ghana, then I had to move to Kenya; and when they came for me in Kenya, I ran to the United Kingdom.
“This is part of the price that you have to pay when you decide to say the truth at the time it wasn’t fashionable to do so, especially a regime that sees truth-telling as an affront or threat to it,” he stressed.
Speaking on whether he knew he was declared an accomplice in PIDOM’s trial, Hundeyin said he had always prepared for it, which is why he decided to go public, especially after examining the way the whistleblower X handle reached out to him and the scenarios that made the handler give him access to the account.
“The attempts by those people to hack my devices, which led to me replacing them, made it clear to me that some things were going on that I didn’t want to be a party to. The educated guess that I had then was that this was probably a state security attempt to rope me into some criminal investigation to discredit my international refugee status and go after political opponent journalists and whistleblowers like myself and PIDOM. It is a thing Nigeria, and other countries are likely to do.
“And just like I guess, truth to form, they named me a suspect in an ongoing criminal investigation for the purpose of creating a narrative basis possibly to put me on an Interpol notice list which makes it more difficult for me to travel essentially to make the world feel like they are closing in on me. And as you know getting hold of David Hundeyin is one of the most important security priorities of the Nigerian establishment. It doesn’t matter that you have terrorists flaunting ransom on TikTok,” he added.
Hundeyin alleged that PIDOM was sprayed with a toxic substance while in police custody and had been having difficulty breathing since then.
“He cannot breathe properly. You can hear it in his voice. Clearly, something is wrong with him,” he said.
