The development was made public on Tuesday during the 3rd Nigerian Media Leaders’ Summit in Abeokuta, Ogun State. 

The Department of State Services (DSS) has finally removed Mr. Lanre Arogundade, the Executive Director of the International Press Centre (IPC), from its security watchlist after nearly 40 years of sustained surveillance, harassment, and intimidation.

The development was made public on Tuesday during the 3rd Nigerian Media Leaders’ Summit in Abeokuta, Ogun State. 

The summit, organised by Journalism Clinic, brought together some of Nigeria’s top media executives and editors.

Announcing the long-overdue delisting, the President of the International Press Institute (IPI) Nigeria, Mr. Muskilu Mojeed, revealed that the DSS Director-General, Mr. Adeola Ajayi, personally conveyed the agency’s decision to IPI Nigeria during a recent engagement. 

The move reportedly followed relentless pressure and advocacy by the media institute.

“The DSS decision followed sustained and intensive campaign by IPI Nigeria to get Mr. Arogundade’s name removed from the watchlist,” a statement signed by IPI Nigeria’s Legal Adviser and Advocacy Committee Chairman, Mr. Tobi Soniyi stated.

“For about 40 years, Mr. Arogundade was subjected to persistent harassment and embarrassment, including brief detention by security operatives at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos,” the statement added.

Arogundade’s presence on the DSS watchlist dates back to his tenure as President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) between 1984 and 1985, during the era of military dictatorship, when student activists and pro-democracy voices were frequently targeted by state security forces.

Despite previous assurances by the secret police to clear his name, the activist-journalist continued to face undue scrutiny, most recently being detained at the Lagos airport in 2022 upon return from a journalism training overseas.

At the Abeokuta summit, the announcement of his delisting was met with applause from media leaders. A visibly relieved Arogundade expressed deep gratitude to IPI Nigeria for its unwavering commitment to justice.

In 2022, SaharaReporters reported that Press Freedom and Safety of Journalists Field Monitors demanded a stop to what it called the continued harassment of Lanre Arogundade, and other journalists in the country by the Department of State Security and other security agencies in Nigeria.

The group demanded an unreserved apology from the DSS to Arogundade for confiscating his mobile phone and briefly detaining him in February 2022.