Senator Orders Search of Journalists in Kano over His Missing Phone

Wonder they say can never end. The level of harassment of journalists by those in power in Nigeria took a new twist yesterday in Kano when Senator Olugbenga Obadara ordered that journalists be locked up in a room and searched over his alleged missing phone.

Olugbenga Obadara is  the  chairman, Senate committee on Privatisation.He was on  oversight visit to the Kano Electricity Distribution Company (KEDCO) .

When journalists and other members of the senators’ entourage gathered at the conference hall before the management of the company, they were asked to move out of the hall till after a presentation by the management to the senator.

After sometime, the journalists were call back to the venue and asked to interact with the chairman senate committee.

Immediately after fielding a few questions, he zoomed out of the hall with some members of the management and some of his aides.

However, trouble started when the chairman raised a false alarm to his host that his phone had been stolen at the venue.

As soon as the alarm was raised, the policemen manning the entrance of the hall were ordered not to open the door for journalists till after they were searched.

Tension was high when other policemen were brought into the hall as reinforcement.

While journalists present were searched, staff of the company and some members of the senators’ entourage were seen moving out of the hall unsearched, an action that the journalists saw as a calculated attempt to embarrass them.

At the peak of the embarrassing situation, came an announcement that the phone had been found by the senator.

The Principal Manager Corporate Communication of KEDCO, Muntari Baffa Usman, apologised to the journalists on behalf of the company for the embarrassment, adding that, journalists were partners in progress.

“It was highly embarrassing,” said the Chairman of the Kano State Correspondents Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Mr. Edwin Olofu, who expressed surprise over the development.

Olofu ordered his members to stop reporting KEDCO for the next three months, while calling for an un-reserved apology from the company.