Armed policemen attached to the Ekeki Divisional Command yesterday invaded the Secretariat of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Yenagoa, Bayelsa state, and disrupted the union’s monthly congress.
Scores of journalists, including state correspondents led by the Chapel Chairman, Comrade Samuel Ese, and the leadership of the National Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ) were not spared the ordeal as armed policemen ordered that the Presidential campaign visit of an aspirant to the Council be stopped.
Trouble started at about 2.54pm when members of the union sighted a suspended member of a faction involved in the crisis against the elected leadership of the union led by Comrade Tare Akono.
A plain clothes policeman, reportedly under the directive of the suspended member, shot tear gas near the gathering when the scheduled congress was to kick-off.
An unmarked police van, carrying armed officers with A.K 47 rifles and plain clothes operatives, were later forced to beat a retreat by the confused journalists. A phone call later made to the chairman of the NUJ, Comrade Tarino Akono, by the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of the Ekeki Command, Peter Ezebuike, averted a mob action.
The journalists led by Akono later met with the DPO and were told to pick another date for the congress over alleged report of a security breach made by some unidentified persons.
All efforts by the NUJ leadership to debunk the claim of security breach and the unanswered written request for police protection to the state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Hillary Okpara, proved abortive.
