By Austin Ajayi, Yola
The lockdown declared by the Adamawa state government which took effect from the 1st of April exempted workers on essential duties,
Nigeria police personnel from (SARS) department in the state police headquarters Yola, yesterday raided the secretariat of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) in the state and arrested 12 journalists.
Speaking to Authority Newspaper correspondent who was at NUJ Secretariat at the time of the raid, the state Chairman of NUJ, Mr. Ishaka Donald Deden confirmed that all the arrested (12) journalists were waiting for any update on COVID-19 in the state
He said ” like you can see now all my effort to stop them from arresting the 12 journalists failed, they even threatened to slap me”.
The arrested journalist were taken to the police station .
“The police stormed the NUJ secretariat at about 6 p.m. to arrest 12 journalists on assignment because they were supposed to brief the NUJ on the updates of COVID-19 and the economic situation of the general public in the state.”
The NUJ Secretariat is were journalist meet everyday to get up date , for the police to raid and arrest our members is most embarrassing at this point in time.
According to Mr. Dedan ” we have been giving the police in Adamawa the publicity and coverage of their activities even without prior notices ”
” if journalist who are exempted from the lockdown can be treated like this in our secretariat, I wonder what the police would do to those who are on their way to cover or monitoring the effect of the lockdown ”
“We are going to met as a professional body to take a stand, our national office will be briefed about this and our decision will be made public”
