Governor AhmaduFintiriof Adamawa State on April 22, 2020 banned journalists, with the exception of in-house journalists, from entering Government House, the seat of Government in the State, located in Yola to cover its activities following the discovery of the index case of the Coronavirus (COVID-19)who is a journalist and a member of the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
Journalists who tried to access government house, as usual, were denied entry by security personnel on duty only to be informed after several attempts that it was “an order from above.”
The Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to the governor, HumwashiWonosikou, confirmed the ban saying, like the government house security personnel that “… this is an order from above that no journalists must come in, you know this issue of the index case.”
An unnamed member of the Correspondents Chapel of the Adamawa Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) tested positive for Covid-19 and becoming the index case in the state. He had returned from Kano a week earlier and upon feeling sick, presented himself at the state Specialist Hospital, Yola where his samples were taken and which later came out positive.
This was disclosed by Governor Fintiri in a statewide broadcast on April 21. The governor said his administration had put all machinery in place to treat the reporter at the isolation centre in Yola and commissioned a contact-tracing mechanism to locate all that had met him to get them quarantined and tested.
