The Nigerian Police, the Department of State Security (DSS) and other security agencies have been handed a 24-hour ultimatum to produce a journalist, Mr. Tordue Henry Salem, who went missing last Wednesday in Abuja.
The ultimatum was handed down Wednesday afternoon at a press conference organised by the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Council, in conjunction with some rights organisations, including Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA), Men Against Rape Foundation and others.
NUJ Chairman, Comrade Emmanuel Ogbeche, informed journalists that the council promptly informed the police and other security agencies immediately the case of Salem was made known to the council and that he has been following the matter up to today.
He lamented that the police and other security agencies have so far done nothing to unravel the whereabouts of the missing Vanguard newspaper journalist who covers the National Assembly.
Ogbeche stated that in this digital age, it takes little or no serious efforts to locate a missing person who has mobile telephone and other facilities easy to track.
He said the onus is on the security agencies to produce Salem or prove to the council and the Nigerian public that the journalist is not in their captivity.
Chairman of HURIWA, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, cited similar cases where citizens have been reported missing, only to be produced by the police after some months and in some cases years, like in the case of Jones Abiri, a journalist who was detained by the police for two years, without the knowledge of his family and the public.
Other CSO representatives at the conference were Comrade Lemmy Ughegbe of the Men Against Rape Foundation and Comrade Bunmi Haruna of Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN).
