Journalists who attended an event at the headquarters of the
Kano Electricity Distribution Company [KEDCO] in Kano today felt deeply
embarrassed when the visiting Chairman of the Senate Committee on
Power, Gbenga Obadara, raised a false alarm that his telephone set
was missing and that reporters might have stolen it,Premium Times reports.
Once Mr. Obadara made the claim, officials of KEDCO quickly
locked up the venue of the event and ordered that all journalists at the event
should be thoroughly searched.
Police officers were asked to block the entrance to the
hall to prevent any reporter from leaving even while officials of KEDCO and
some officials who accompanied Senator Obadara to the event were
allowed to go free without being searched.
At a point, more fully armed police officers were
brought in to join in frisking the journalists.
At the height of the embarrassing situation, somebody
knocked on the door of the hall and announced that thesenator, who
was now outside the hall, had recovered his phone.
The announcement angered the journalists and embarrassed the management of
the company who apologised profusely to the reporters.
The company’s Principal Manager, Corporate Communications,
Mutari Usman, said the journalists should overlook the incident and continue to
see KEDCO as partners in progress.
The senator did not personally apologise to the
journalists.
But the Chairman of the Kano Correspondents Chapel
of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Edwin Olofu, rejected KEDCO’s apology and
directed his members to commence an immediate boycott of the company’s activities.
He said journalists in Kano would not report the company’s activities for
three months unless they receive a formal unreserved apology.
“This is very embarrassing! How can a Senator of
the Federal Republic belittle himself by raising a devastatingfalse alarm like
this,” Mr. Olofu fumed. “It is a slap on our face.”
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