On August 15, 2024, Mr. Abdulrasheed Hammad, an award-winning freelance journalist, was invited for questioning by Nigeria’s intelligence agency, the Department of State Services (DSS), office in Sokoto which asked him to report the next day following an investigative report he published on the production of unwholesome drinking water in plastic sachets by factories in Sokoto State without regulatory approval.
When Mr. Hammad informed the DSS official who called on the phone to invite him for questioning that he was not in Sokoto and would therefore not be able to honour the invitation, the DSS official threatened to arrest him if he failed to show up.
Prior to this latest incident, Mr. Hammad and his fixer had been brutalized by thugs and arrested and briefly detained by the Police at the behest of one of the factory owners while he was investigating the story.
In the investigation report titled “INVESTIGATION: Inside Sokoto factories producing contaminated sachet water” published on August 11, 2024, Mr. Hammed detailed how 22 factories in Sokoto produce sachet and table water without registering their products with the regulators, the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), as required by Law.
On June 15, 2024, Mr. Hammad had set out to speak with several sachet water producing factory owners about their products not being registered with NAFDAC. He went with a fixer and the first factory they went to was at Sabuuz Pure Water Factory, where he discussed with manager and thereafter, left.
From Sabuuz, he said he went to Al-Sheriff Pure Water Factory located at No. 10 Kalabaina Road Arkilla Nepa Grid in Sokoto where he spoke with the manager and was thereafter referred to the owner. Mr. Hammad said the owner challenged him for investigating the issue, asking with a threatening voice: “What are you doing here? Are you a NAFDAC staff member? What do you want? Go and write what you want to write and publish what you want to publish.”
After his outburst, he ordered the thugs working in his car wash nearby to beat up Mr. Hammad and his fixer. The thugs seized their money, phones, Orodata tag, and dragged them into his compound. His fixer lost his wristwatch in the process. They were then handcuffed by an unidentified man without saying what offence they had committed. They were interrogated about how they got their information upon which he accessed the NAFDAC portal and inputted the number printed Al-Sheriff sachet water packs, ostensibly as NAFDAC approval number, which was not verified by the portal.
Despite this demonstration to prove his point Al-Sheriff did not have a legitimate NAFDAC approval number, Mr. Hammad and his fixer were nonetheless paraded before the community still in handcuff with many people filming them in that condition.
Thereafter, they returned all the journalist’s and his fixer’s belongings to them except the fixer’s wristwatch.
From Al-sheriff factory, the reporter and his fixer, still in handcuffs were driven to Arkilla Police Station, where they were questioned by the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) and other officers on duty. After the interrogation, the police decided to transfer matter to the state CID in Sokoto without informing them of the offence they had committed.
Mr. Hammed said he explained to the police the importance of the work he was doing in ensuring safe drinking water for Sokoto residents and encouraging factories to register with regulatory bodies, but rather than understand and do the right thing, the police continued to harass them on their way to State CID Sokoto.
Mr. Hammad said a friend of his who is an officer of the Department of State Services (DSS) officer intervened and called for an amicable settlement. He said even though he presented his Orodata tag and letter of introduction showing that he is a freelance journalist working on a fake pure water factory in Sokoto, the police still labeled him a fake journalist.
He was forced to write an apology letter to Al-Sheriff Pure Water Factory owner and pay N5,000 to the police to secure administrative bail. Mr. Hammad and his fixer were released after paying the N5,000.
Mr. Hammad said he took ill following the incident, upon which he visited the medical facility at the Usmanu Danfodiyo University in Sokoto on June 19, 2024, where a doctor confirmed that he had high blood pressure and a high pulse rate, for which medication was prescribed for him.
In an account to Media Rights Monitor, he said: “This inhuman treatment I faced at the hands of the owner of the Al-Sheriff Pure Water Factory and harassment from the police affected my mental health and resulted in my developing high blood pressure.”
