Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar is in the news again for the wrong reason after he chased journalists out of the Plateau State Secretariat of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP when he visited on Monday to meet with the State leadership and delegates of the Party to discuss his 2023 Presidential ambition.
Last week, the PDP presidential aspirant came under heavy attack for giving a tacit support to the gruesome murder of Deborah Samuel by deleting the post he made condemning the action.
By his action on Monday, he became the first aspirant to bar journalists from the PDP hall even though some of his co-contenders have been visiting the State in the past few weeks.
The Turaki of Adamawa had arrived at the Plateau State PDP Secretariat at about 2:19 pm, but as he met journalists from the print and broadcast media waiting in the hall, he repeatedly ordered them out saying “I have nothing to do with journalists. I’m here to see delegates.”
The order prompted his aides and security details to go on a rampage, chasing out journalists, causing a stampede, and as a result, damaging gadgets including phones as well as a tripod and camera belonging to Channels TV.
The officials and delegates who could not help the fleeing journalists were disappointed at such behavior from the former Vice-President who had been in the State in 2019 and never displayed such anger at journalists who were there on official duty.
It’s not clear if the strange hostility of Atiku against the media is a result of the wide coverage given to his deleted posts which condemned the murder of the female student of Shehu Shagari College of Education Sokoto.
