Channels Ban in Makurdi: Issues by Iorliam’Amo Shija

The first issue of the day on the table for discussion was the ban of their correspondent, Pius Angbo, from continuing with the coverage of yesterday’s plenary of the Benue State house of assembly!
Channels are presuming, the ban might not be unconnected with the footage they acquired of previous day where members of the house fought over majority leader tussle.

The hosts of the programme put a call to their reporter who incidentally, came from Lafia to cover the assembly and he explained what happened in deailed .
From his explanation, the reporter had contact with three people; Chief Press Secretary to the speaker(name not mentioned), Sergeant at Arms(no name) and the Clerk of the Benue state house of assembly(no name).

In the first instance, it was the CLERK who allowed him to cover proceedings on 24th June. when he came on the 25th June, Sergeant at Arms directed him to see the Chief press secretary , the latter raised the issue of accreditation with him.
That hence, only those accredited to cover assembly matters would be allowed in. This started around 9 Am, but the CPS told him to wait which he did till 10 AM, at this point, he observed that members of the house and other journalists were assessing the chambers, without any ado, and sought to be allowed in too.

That was when the CPS told the reporter that he was won’t be allowed. That the speaker has asked that he should not be allowed to cover the assembly. The pleas of the clerk with the CPS that the reporter be allowed fell on deaf ears. So he left back to Lafia around 11 AM to file his report.
Surprisingly, from 12 noon yesterday, when the story came out from Channels till this morning, The speaker’s CPS or the speaker himself have not stated their position. The reporter said the CPS or Speaker or any of their representatives have not issued a released contacted him since he broke the report.

They have , I think, not also talked to us, Benue people.
I want the speaker’s CPS to know that image managing in the 21st century is a different ball game and moreso, it is expected that as an image manager, he should be up and doing following the news and making clarifications on the go. As soon as the story broke, he should have offered an explanation or atleast provided his side of the story.
I don’t know what has stopped him from doing that till now.

The speaker will have to therefore speak now! Did he order his CPS to bar Channels from covering his assembly? Why would he do that in the face of Section 22 of the Nigerian constitution?
His image has suffered, but a clear position on this NOW might mitigate the effect.