The chairman Senate Committee on Privatization, Senator Gbenga Obadara lost his phone during an interaction session with journalists and ordered that all journalists present be searched to recover the phone.
The senator noticed his Chinese smart phone went missing on Wednesday, October 22, 2014 shortly after an interactive session with over 30 journalists held in one of the oversight function at the headquarters of Kano Electrical Distribution Company located at Post office road.
The senator, who was in company of some members of his commitee, noticed his phone was no longer with him and alerted the management of the Power firm of the development.
The image maker of Kano Electrical Distribution, Alhaji Mukhtar Baffa, acting on instructions, seized the microphone and requested “gentlemen, we don’t intend to embarrass any of you but I am told you have to submit yourselves for search over senator’s missing phone”.
Immediately after that, hefty and heavily armed policemen stormed the conference hall to begin the search operation.
A hefty combat ready police officer who led the operation hoarded the reporters to one side of the hall as he began to spell out the rules of the game to the hapless pressmen.
Just as the search was getting in full gear, a message from outside the hall announced the discovery of the infamous missing phone.
There was relief over the return of the phone but the embarrassed journalists weren’t all gleeful.
The leadership of the Journalists demand a written apology from the management of Kano Electrical Distribution Company.
The chairman of correspondent chapel, Mr. Francis Edwin Olofu described the incident as “totally demeaning, provocative and uncalled for”.
However, the public relations manager of Kano Electrical Distribution Company, Alhaji Mukhtar Baffa appealed for understanding, pointing out that “it was not meant to humiliate members of pen profession.
