FLASHBACK: How Jonathan’s CSO expelled a state house correspondent

Two weeks to the end of the tenure of former President Goodluck Jonathan, the late Gordon Obua, who was his chief security officer (CSO) expelled Musa Ubale, a correspondent of German Radio, Deutsche Welle, from Aso Rock.

Obua also directed his men to withdraw the accreditation of Ubale before the reporter was driven out of the villa.

Ubale had drawn the ire of the powers that be for having the temerity to ask visiting President Idriss Déby of Chad some tough questions.

The reporter had asked Déby, who had just had a meeting with Jonathan, about the whereabouts of Abubakar Shekau, the Boko Haram leader, making reference to a statement by the Chadian leader who had said the sect’s leader had been seen in Dikwa, Borno state.

Ubale also asked about the relationship between the multinational task force fighting in Lake Chad and the South African mercenaries fighting with them in the Sambisa forest.

Deby had said he did not know the whereabouts of Shekau and also denied knowledge of the presence of the mercenaries.

The federal government had also denied the involvement of South African mercenaries, maintaining that Nigerian soldiers were only being trained on new weapons by foreigners.

After Déby left the villa, Ubale was taken aside and questioned, after which he was escorted into a waiting van and driven out of Aso Rock villa.

He was later allowed to return to pack his belongings at the press gallery, after which the security agents escorted him again out of the presidential villa, this time in his personal car.

Until Jonathan left power, Ubale was not allowed to report the activities of the president.

But in what was regarded as a heroic act, the Buhari administration recalled Ubale, who is the incumbent chairman of the state house press corps.

Speaking at a brief ceremony where Ubale’s press tag was returned, Femi Adesina, special adviser to the president on media and publicity, had said the re-accreditation of Musa as a state house correspondent was in keeping with Buhari’s commitment to correct the wrongs of the past.

“Part of the change promised by President Buhari is correcting things that were wrongly done before,” Adesina had said.

“Mr. Ubale Musa’s accreditation was wrongly withdrawn. To redress the wrong done to him by the withdrawal, we have returned his villa press pass to him so that he can continue his work without hindrance.”

Will this government return the pass of Olalekan Adetayo, correspondent of Punch, that has just be withdrawn? History just has a way of repeating itself, particularly in Nigerian politics.