Ugochukwu Iwuchukwu
The Kwara Chapter of the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN), has described as barbaric and unfortunate an attack on its members on Sunday in Ilorin.
The Secretary of the association in the state, Olayinka Owolewa, made the description in a statement on Monday in Ilorin.
The statement demanded that the management of Kwara United FC provide for the Nigeria Police a group of persons identified as members of its Fans Club who attacked the journalists within seven days.
The statement said if the club refuses to produce those who attacked the newsmen, the association will be forced to ask its members to boycott every activity of Kwara United till further notice.
Owolewa said the body will report the matter to the Nigeria Police Force and the Department of State Security (DSS) for necessary action while it will also consider legal action.
While the association considered the attack on the gentlemen carrying out their lawful duties, as uncultured, the body noted that it will also report the matter to the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and the league organizers, the League Management Company (LMC).
The statement explained that it will not tolerate from anyone or organization, molestation or harassment of its members because they are always carrying out their duties diligently and professionally without fear or favour.
It would be recalled that the ugly incident occurred during the post-match interview with Kwara United Coach, Abubakar Bala when the miscreants forcefully disrupted the exercise and attacked some of the sports writers.
The situation, however, led to personal attacked on some members of the Sports Writers, which includes Jimoh Bashir, Yusuf Feruke of The Herald Newspaper and Toyin Saheed of Sobi FM.
The mayhem, which lasted for about 25 minutes left no injuries to any of the journalists, however, one of the journalists have the screen of his mobile phone broken after the ugly scenes.
The body has summoned an emergency congress for Wednesday, May 15, at the conference room of the Sports Council by 1pm.
