On January 26, 2024, security aides attached to the Osun State governor, Mr. Ademola Adeleke, manhandled Mr. Bunmi Adigun, a reporter with the Ogun State Television (OGTV), when he went to cover the 66th birthday celebrations of Oba Adeyemi Adekeye, the Abepa of Joga Orile and conferment of Baba Oba chieftaincy title on governor Adeleke.
The security aides reportedly began to push people including journalists immediately after the governor arrived at the venue of the event.
Narrating his ordeal, Mr. Adigun said: “They pushed my cameraman and other cameramen, thought that was enough until they got to where we were standing, I was harassed, embarrassed, and they nearly tore my clothes.”
The reporter said when he tried to get to those who harassed them, he noticed that they were putting on a different uniform from the normal police uniform with no name tag and wearing nose masks.
Following the incident, the Ogun State chapter of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), in a statement by Wale Olanrewaju, its chairman, called on Governor Adeleke to, as a matter of urgency, fish out and reprimand the ‘power drunk’ police officers who attacked the reporter.
Reacting to the allegations, Mr. Olawale Rasheed, the spokesperson to Osun State governor, tendered an unreserved apology to the Ogun State Council of NUJ for the ‘unruly conduct of some security men at the Joga-Orile chieftaincy event’.
He said, “On behalf of the governor, I apologise to the secretary of the NUJ in Ogun State, and any other journalist who might have been affected by the incident. However, we want to put it on record that several dignitaries attended the event with different security personnel. The officers shown in the video do not belong to the convoy of the Osun State Governor.”
