THE Commissioner for NGO and Student Affairs and Chairman of the Accreditation sub-committee of the Kaduna sub seat of the Local Organising Committee, Bityong Yakubu Nkom and his team harassed journalists covering the FIFA Under-17 World Youth Championship in Nigeria, writes Abdulrahman Tonga in Leadership.
The journalists had gone to the accreditation centre to collect the accreditation card holder, but were bluntly told that they should go and buy for themselves.
The Kaduna based reporters, some of whom were accredited on the first day without the holders provided by the sponsors, Sony were told by the Commissioner that they had ran out of the holders.
When told that the accreditation officers have been playing games with the Reporters right from the beginning, the commissioner insisted that "you should go and buy, you should buy plain ones and not branded ones.
He also insisted that the Reporters had not informed him about their ordeal, pointing out that they were given only a few holders and that it is only after the players and other officials have been attended to before they would be given."You people are not even supposed to come here and shout. You are not behaving like matured people. Why should you be shouting? One of the accreditation officers said.
At this stage, there was a confrontation between them at the centre and the reporter with one of the volunteers hitting The Nation Correspondent in Kaduna and a struggle ensured between the officials, the Volunteers and the Reporter.The Commissioner who should have intervened to save the situation joined the fray holding the reporter by the neck while saying "leave him (the volunteer) alone".
However, the reporters were later given a few holders with a promise to give them more later.
Click here to read the full report, posted on allafrica.com.
