Edo Guber | Nigeria Union of Journalists disclaims suspected fake journalists

The National leadership of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), yesterday, said it knows nothing about 10 persons in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS) in Edo State.

The suspected journalists on arrest in a popular hotel in the state had claimed that they were in the state to cover Wednesday’s governorship election.

But addressing journalists on behalf of the national president of NUJ, Waheed Odunsile, the chairman of Edo State chapter of the union, Comrade Roland Osakwe, said attempts by the NUJ to seek the release of the suspected journalists uncovered that they were unable to provide any form of identification linking them to any media house.

He said: “I must confess that the union was seriously embarrassed when it was discovered that the arrested persons were not practicing journalists as their means of identification were misleading as their contradictory claims of working with Watch Dog, a publication based in Abuja did not add up.

“Although one of them had an invalid NUJ national identification card, their inability to explain their mission in the state and the established fact that they were not practicing journalists owing to the fact that none of them had any published story to their names gave them out as fake.

“We are not particularly concerned about why they were arrested in the first place by the DSS, what we can only demand is for security operatives to dig thoroughly into the matter with a view to unravelling their actual identity and mission in Edo State.”

The union urged members to ensure they are properly accredited before the coverage of the election to avoid clashes with security agents.