On October 20, 2022, political thugs engaged to work at a shop to be used as a campaign office within the secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Zamfara State Council, in Gusau, the State capital, beat up the Council Chairman, Comrade Ibrahim Musa Maizare, when he asked them to stop work on the shop.
The hoodlums brutalized Comrade Maizare with sticks and threatened to deal with the journalists in the state.
The hoodlums vowed that they won’t stop the work or leave the place because it was given to them by a politician, and that as long as the politician is alive, they will not vacate the place.
The shop being renovated was burnt by rival thugs in 2021 and as a result, the NUJ asked them to vacate the premises for fear of putting the whole NUJ complex and other shops attached to it at risk of further attacks.
The arrival of a batch of policemen did not deter the thugs who thugs continued to hurl insults at the officials and other members of the Union. The police had to quickly leave the scene.
Secretary of the Union, Ibrahim Ahmad Gada, has asked the security agencies to protect the lives and property of journalists adding that the lives of working journalists in the state are seriously in danger.
He asked: “If an armed thug can threaten to kill a working journalist what do you expect?” noting that the safety of all working journalists must be guaranteed and calling on all the stakeholders to intervene saying a thug should not dictate the way the journalists use their property in the state.
