By Muhammed Abubakar, Reporting
HOODLUMS, suspected to be thugs, on Thursday, beat up the Zamfara State Chairman of the Nigeria Union Journalists (NUJ), Comrade Ibrahim Maizare, while threatening to deal with journalists working in the state.
The thugs descended on the NUJ Chairman after he asked some workers, who were at the NUJ Shopping Complex at the Union’s Secretariat to renovate a shop to be used as a campaign office to stop the work.
The hoodlums said they won’t stop the work or leave the place because it was given to them by a politician and as long as the politician was breathing, they would never vacate the place.
The NUJ shop was initially rented out to a food vendor but the tenant later left the shop and it was converted into a campaign office by the thugs.
The said shop was set ablaze by the rival thugs in 2021 and the NUJ asked the thugs to vacate the office for fear of putting the whole NUJ Complex and other shops attached to it at risk.
Even after a team of police arrived at the NUJ Secretariat, the thugs continued to hurl insults at the officials and other members of the Union, the police had to quickly leave the place.
Reacting shortly after the incident, the Secretary of the Union, Comrade Ibrahim Ahmad Gada, asked the security agencies to protect the lives and property of working journalists in the state.
He added that the lives of journalists in the state are seriously in danger.
“On the arrival of the Police at the place, those thugs vividly said nobody could stop them from living in the place and they were ready to deal decisively or even kill any journalist who feels they must leave the place,” Gada said.
“We are calling on all stakeholders to come to our aid, the Nigerian Union of Journalists and indeed the working journalists are under serious threat of life in Zamfara.
“The security agencies should understand the situation we are in because if we cannot have peace, we cannot work,” he averred.
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