Gbenga Obadara Embarasses Journalists At KEDCO Meeting, Says They ‘Stole’ My Phone

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 the
senator, 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 devastating
false alarm like this,” Mr. Olofu fumed. “It is a slap on our face.”