Exactly one week after one of its members, Mr. Tordue Salem, disappeared, the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, FCT Council, has asked the security agencies in the country to be alive to their responsibilities.
In what it termed a World Press Conference, the NUJ, in collaboration with Coalition of Civil Society Groups, requested that the Vanguard reporter be produced within twenty four hours.
According to the chairman of the council, Comrade Emmanuel Ogbeche, Mr. Salem’s disappearance is not a one off thing hence it is worrisome that no deliberate effort is being made by security agencies to unravel the whereabouts of the reporter especially as the security agencies like the police and the Department of State Security, DSS, have everything within its powers including the technological knowhow to trace his location.
He prayed that Salem’s disappearance is not a repeat of another journalist, Jones Abiri who had disappeared in June twenty twenty nine only to be released two years later by government without any credible charges against him.
The NUJ chairman, reminded the security agencies that the court is the highest arbitrator in any case and as such, if Salem had perchance, made any mistake that would warrant his detention, he should be charged to court rather than hidden away and putting his family through untold hardship.
Also speaking, Mr. Emmanuel Onwubiko of the Coalition of Civil Society Organizations, called on the federal government to open up detention centres to enable credible CSO organize regular visits.
He said if government is sincere about practicing constitutional democracy, then, there should be no basis for existence of underground cells as operated by the DSS and wondered why the police is not utilizing the various technologies at its disposal to tracking his telephone conversation before his disappearance especially as he disappeared in front of the police headquarters.
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