…properties destroyed, Android phone, ID card seized
By Ivlas Adama
A senior journalist suspected of working for the ruling All Progressives Congress government led by Governor Hope Uzodimma was beaten by supporters of a female councillorship candidate of one of the opposition political parties in Owerri North Local Government Area of Imo State in Nigeria’s South East region on Saturday 21st September, 2024.
Some minutes after 6pm, the journalist who was heading home after monitoring polling booths in Ikenegbu area of the state capital Owerri, noticed a noisy crowd at the gate of a house opposite a polling booth.
He approached the crowd and asked what was amiss with his android phone in recording mode. A young lady in the crowd revealed that the people were angry because they felt the election officers who arrived at the booth after 5pm must have rigged the election.
He then approached the candidate at the gate and asked what happened. She asked to know him and he told her he is a journalist and she flared up, shouting “Did they send you? Did they send you to come and spy on us?”
The journalist replied that he knows the candidate and had interacted with her before, adding that he is a member of the church in front of her house.
The candidate shouted “I don’t know you.!! I don’t know you!!”
Immediately, one of the young men working for her slapped the journalist. Shocked, the journalist brought out his ID card, saying that he knows the candidate.
At that point, a young man seized the ID card. He then seized the journalist’s android phone and, deleted the recording.
The candidate collected the phone and put it in her bag. The journalist requested that his phone be returned to him since the recording had been deleted but she refused and told him to leave the place.
As he made to leave, three young men pounced on him, dragged him outside the gate and violently pushed him and he landed on the road on his back and head, with injuries on both arms.
The impact of the fall destroyed his prescription bifocal eyeglasses and Itel 30,000 milliamp Power Bank.
As he made to recover items that fell out of his pocket from the fall, a man next to him advised him to save his life first by leaving the area. The key to his house was lost in the incident.
Unfortunately, the seizure of the android phone which could not be retrieved till 5pm on Sunday, 22nd September, 2024, disrupted the professional work that needed to be done including filing reports from the interviews on the election contained in the android phone.
The matter was reported to Imo State Police Command Headquarters and from there to Orji Divisional Police Office where it was revealed that the candidate deposited the seized android phone and ID card.
The journalist who arrived at the police division at 9 am on Sunday to report the matter had to wait for the Divisional Police Officer who came to the office after 4pm and ordered the immediate release of the Android phone and ID card to him without delay.