Gombe Govt Denies Arresting Radio Journalist For Hosting Opposition
By Ben Ngwakwe, Gombe
Gombe State Government has reacted to the insinuation by the opposition New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), which alleged that it ordered the arrest of a radio journalist for hosting a member of the party in a political programme.
Special adviser to the governor on Information Management and Strategy, Alhaji Ahmed Shuaibu-Gara in a statement issued to journalists yesterday said the government did not order arrest of any journalist and the allegations are unfounded and baseless.
He challenged the opposition to provide proof that any journalist was arrested by the State Government, adding that it only tabled a complaint to the police against the radio guest who made unfounded allegations against the government.
“Gombe state government did not order arrest of any journalist. Anyone who claims that a journalist was arrested, he should show us his accreditation by the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) or the Radio, Television and Threatre Art Workers Union (RATTAWU) or any identity card to prove that he is a journalist,” he stated.
The Special Adviser, added further what they did was to complain the Police authority.
” What we know is that the government complained to the police which is our right to do so that we monitored a radio programme where a guest was invited to a political programme which was about 30 minutes.
“In that programme, the guest alleged that we spent over N4 billion to fence the Gombe Government House. We presented to the police our records of the entire State Budget for maintenance of all public buildings between 2019 to 2022.
“The entire figures for four years is not up to N4 billion and our performance for maintaining all public buildings in Gombe State is not more than N1.6 billion in all the four years (2019 – 2022). So under the principle of fair hearing, we wanted the police to help us ask him for his own evidence.
“It is as elementary as this. How can someone say that we spent over N4 billion just to fence Government House alone? Infact, when confronted by investigators the suspect does not even know how many millions make up N1 billion?” Gara alleged.
The media aide said ordinarily if anybody wants to get any information from government for genuine purpose, he should follow due process adding that the government is ever willing to do so in line with the Freedom of Information policy.
