By Sule Sani-Jalingo
Suspected hoodlums had in the early hours of Friday, broken into the NUJ Taraba Correspondents Chapel Office in Jalingo, carting away valuable equipment worth millions of naira.
Those equipment stolen include 34′ Sony Plasma TV, generating set, DSTV decoder, automatic voltage regulator, computers among others.
Briefing newsmen over the incident, Chairman, Correspondents Chapel, Taraba State, Wole Ayodele, regretted the incident and appealed to the Taraba State government to fulfill its promise to relocate the Chapel to a more safer and conducive place in order to avert a reoccurrence.
“I want to plead to the government and well meaning Tarabans to support the Chapel. No assistance will be too big and no assistance will be too small”, he stated.
Also, while commiserating with the Chapel over the incident, the Chairman NUJ Taraba State, Jovita Shafe, regretted the plight the Chapel has found itself, saying were it not that the NUJ Press Centre was in a dilapidated condition, the Chapel office would have relocated to the place.
He said “we are in deep sorrow for what had befallen us . It is destiny. We at this level have been thinking that the Chapel will be accommodated at the NUJ Press Centre but to no avail because of the dilapidated structure”.
According to him, journalists in the state have partnered with government for a long time hence the need to look into their welfare.
“But the government should understand that we have been in romance with the government. We have never been at loggerheads. We perform every responsibility to ensure we achieve peace. We do not have control over our members because we don’t have accommodation.
The only way we can succeed in checking the excesses of our members is when we have a place to call our own. This incident is tragic not only to the Chapel but the NUJ in Taraba State and government.
“We are appealing to the state government and public spirited individuals to come to the aide of the Chapel”.
Members of the Chapel were however, seen evacuating the remaining equipment out of the office to prevent further damage”.
