SOKAPU: Journalist reporting atrocities in Kaduna, arrested, thrown into detention

President of the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union, SOKAPU, Comrade Jonathan Asake has raised an alarm of “strange happenings” in Kaduna state.

Speaking at the 2021 human rights lecture organised by the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, with the theme: “Nigerian School Children; Insecurity and Human Rights”, held in Abuja, Asake gave a timeline of some alleged attacks in the state claimed that insecurity in the state has kept children out of school.

Alleging that some people are being paraded on the media over a particular crime over and over again, the SOKAPU President also claimed that “journalists who have attempted to report atrocities that have been going on in Kaduna have been arrested and thrown into detention.”

He said “In line with the topic, our children, particularly school children, and what insecurity has caused in their rights,” he said.

“I’ll make no attempt to talk about last year or the year before or attempt to go out of Kaduna State.

“I’ll only say what is happening in Kaduna State and this year alone. And you will be able to put them up together.

“On the 30th of January this year, kidnappers went into a school just very close to Kaduna called Good Shepherd Seminary and kidnapped 4 seminarians there.

“One of them was killed because the kidnappers wanted to show that if the ransom is not paid, they’re very serious, they’ll kill the rest. The dead body was kept on the roadside. Ransom was paid and the others were freed.

“On the 11th of March this same year, kidnappers went to the school of forestry where 39 students were kidnapped and on the 20th of April that the students of Greenfield University were kidnapped.

“On July 5, they went to a town called Danutshi and kidnapped 126 Bethel Baptist Students and it’s been over two months now. They’ve released many of them. They’re releasing them in batches. The first payment was N100m paid by the parents totally abandoned by the government.”SOKAPU: Journalist reporting atrocities in Kaduna, arrested, thrown into detention