Gombe State Governor, Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya is said to be hunting for journalists who are considered to be enemies of his government.
Information has it that no fewer than three journalists have either been arrested, harassed or intimidated over trumped-up charges of libel and defamation, after publishing what clearly were investigative stories.
Governor Inuwa Yahaya is also said to be trailing some journalists who are believed to have gone underground to avoid his persecution.
It was gathered that the Publisher of Daylight Reporter, Dahiru Hassan Kera, has been declared ‘persona non grata’ in Gombe and has since fled the State.
Kera, who has not stepped his foot into the state for several months now, has also gone into hiding, after receiving Governor Inuwa Yahaya’s open threat to ‘deal’ with him, a family member said.
The publisher’s persecution started after his online newspaper published a syndicated report on Gombe’s huge debt profile, under Inuwa Yahaya’s administration.
Other media platforms like The Peoples Gazette, Premium Times and Sahara Reporters equally published statements by various groups, condemning the ‘ballooning’ debt profile.
In a phone chat, Kera described the Governor’s resolve to hound him as ‘political persecution since he did not bother to go after any of the other newspapers.
“Aside from the harmless publication of the debt profile story carried by my newspaper, Governor Inuwa Yahaya is not comfortable with my decision to contest for a seat in the Gombe State House of Assembly, at next year’s elections,” he said.
According to Kera, while two former Governors and five eminent politicians both in Gombe and other parts of the country made attempts to placate Governor Inuwa Yahaya, he disregarded their interventions by sticking to his gun.
“It was because of the Governor I could not visit my elder brother at a Gombe Hospital when he was bedridden while battling a terminal ailment, prior to his death on April 21, 2022.
“And not only that, I still could also not attend his funeral the next day he was buried, as I did not know the trap Governor Inuwa Yahaya may have set for me if I dare visit the State,” he added.
Another journalist in the State that ‘got more than he bargained for’ in the hands of Governor Inuwa Yahaya is a reporter with the Voice of America, VOA, working in Gombe.
In a short recorded telephone conversion audio between the Governor and the VOA reporter, a visibly angry Inuwa Yahaya threatened to ‘deal’ with the VOA staff, over a story the reporter did, which the Governor did not find palatable.
Elaborating on the incident, Abdulwahab Muhammad, the reporter in question, however said that the Governor did not make good his threat.
He said: “During Governor Yahaya’s first 100 days in office, I interviewed him, and took him up on what informed his decision to retrench over 4,000 youths whom his immediate-predecessor in office, Alhaji Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo, recruited into the Gombe State private security network.
“But the Governor, while responding said that those recruited got the job in order to assist in furthering former Governor Dankwambo’s political agenda ahead of the 2019 polls. According to him, those recruited could have joined the Police or Army if they were interested in uniform work.
“So, in balancing the story, I also interviewed the Gombe State PDP PRO, who not only criticised the Governor’s action but went further to describe his first 100 days as ‘Black Days’ for the State. It was not long after my report was out that the Governor, perhaps having come across it, called and started saying all sort of things.”
Sani Labaran, a social media influencer, had recalled the ‘gruesome’ brutality he also suffered in the hands of two thugs and Governor Inuwa Yahaya’s official driver, last September.
According to the social media influencer, the persecution meted on him by thugs allegedly ‘working’ for the Gombe State Government may not be unconnected to the fact that he has made a series of posts on social media, criticising some anti-masses policies of the Governor.
Labaran, said: “Around September last year, I was at a mechanic stand to fix my car, when three persons who rode in a jeep having a Gombe Government House plate number, invaded the mechanic shop.
“They instantly descended on me, kicking, slapping and brutalising me with sticks and other hard objects they were wielding. They smashed and inflicted deep cuts on my head, in the process.
“I would later be detained on the orders of the State Government for 11 days, before regaining freedom, eventually. The cruelty and horrible torture I received at the Police station where I was detained, made it difficult for me to walk, and urinate easily, after my release. A surgery even had to be performed on me.”
Several attempts to reach any top official of the Gombe State Government were unsuccessful.
Ismaila Uba Misilli, Director General, Press Affairs at the Gombe State Government, did not answer multiple calls to his phone line.
He also did not respond to a WhatsApp message forwarded to him, at press time.
Source: PRNigeria.
