By Friday Idachaba
Lokoja – Speaker of Kogi House of Assembly Prince Matthew Kolawole said on Tuesday that legislators and staff of the state House of Assembly would now have to wear name-tag as from Sept. 12.
Kolawole made the disclosure at a news briefing with members of the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Kogi Council of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Lokoja.
According to him, accredited journalists covering the House proceedings and visitors to the complex will also have to wear name-tags.
He said that the measure was to ensure easy identification of authorized persons in the Assembly complex and to curtail the recurrence of the Aug. 1 invasion of the chamber by hoodlums.
He hinted that only last week, the handset of one of the legislators was stolen in the chamber and the culprit was insulting everyone that dared to call the telephone line.
He said that the phone was later recovered by the men of the State Security Service (SSS) somewhere around the state Polytechnic.
On the barring of journalists from covering the House proceedings, the speaker said that some security staff of the House had been overzealous in carrying out his orders.
“Sincerely speaking, I have never and I will not order our doors to be closed to journalists.
“What will I say or stand to gain if I close our doors against journalists. It is through you that the people can hear, see and read about what we do here.
“I want to tell you emphatically that after the Aug. 1 crisis of the House, some of us were invited to the police station to say what we know about the crisis and we got to understand that information got to the police through some journalists.
“However, I never said that journalists should be barred from covering the proceedings, I only said that journalists covering the House should be accredited,” he said.
He added that there would be monthly news briefing from now on to inform journalists on activities of the House. (NAN)
