While Abdulrasheed Hammad, a freelance journalist, was working on an investigative story involving factories producing contaminated water in Sokoto State, he and his fixer visited a sachet water manufacturing factory in the Arkilla NEPA Grid area of the state.
The name of the particular enterprise he visited was Al-Sharif Pure Water Factory and the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) registered number on the company’s sachet water was E1-0164L.
Prior to his visit, Hammad had run a background check on the NAFDAC number (E1-0164L) the company printed on its sachet water and found that it did not exist on the agency’s verification portal.
The reason he then decided to pay a physical visit to the factory was that he needed to be sure he had not made any error with the Al-Sharif water NAFDAC number he had tried verifying.
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He also needed to be sure that the problem was not with the NAFDAC verification platform he had used. Lastly, Hammad wanted to find out if the company now used a newly registered NAFDAC number for its products different from the one he had.
When he met with the owner of the factory, however, what was supposed to be a hapless fact-finding mission spiralled out of control and became ‘a crime’.
During the visit, Hammad and his fixer were physically abused, dehumanised, held hostage for hours and later handed over to the police by the sachet water manufacturer.
MANUFACTURER BECOMES HOSTILE ON THE SPOT
While speaking with FIJ on the incident, Hammad said the owner of the pure water enterprise became very hostile to him when he told him about what he had found while trying to verify the NAFDAC number that was printed on the sachet water he manufactures.
“We got arrested by the owner of the factory on June 15,” Hammad told FIJ on Thursday.
“When I told the manufacturer about what I had discovered when I ran his company’s NAFDAC number on the agency’s portal, he responded to me with a shaky voice and gave me responses I could really could not piece together.
“He later said I should leave his premises. “Go and publish whatever you want to publish”, he said, as we were about to take our leave.
“As we got to the exit of the factory, he suddenly told his workers not to allow us go in Hausa.
“The workers instantly surrounded us and physically abused us. They also collected all the money I had on me. The money was later returned to me. But, in the process, my fixer lost his wristwatch.
“After this, he ordered his workers to take us back into his compound and they did. They made us sit on the floor and started interrogating us.
“They demanded to know who I was and I told them I am a freelance journalist working on a story for TheCable. I went on to show them my means of identification. They also demanded to know how I knew about their sachet water production.
“While this went on, a man emerged from the group and placed us in handcuffs. As we were being made to answer questions in handcuffs, some of the factory workers were taking pictures of us.
“Some of the workers had also gone to fetch bottles and were awaiting further orders from the owner of the factory so they could further harm us.”
After a while, Hammad and his fixer were taken to Arkilla Police Station.
N5,000 COLLECTED AT ARKILLA POLICE STATION
While at the police station, Hammad was again quizzed on the purpose of his visit to the factory.
“The owner of Al-sharif pure water wote in his stattement that we were suspected criminals,” Hammad said.
“This was after I had again shown the officers my letter of introduction as a freelance journalist.
“The officers also later concluded that we were impersonators and transferred us to the Sokoto State CID unit in handcuffs.
“While were being transported to the CID unit, I was able to make a phone call to a friend in the Sokoto DSS who promptly intervened and got the police officers that were transporting us to turn around and come back to Arkilla Police Station.
“On returning to the station, we were forced to write an apology letter to the factory owner and we were also made to pay N5,000 to one of the officers. I was able to capture the face of the police officer who took the money as he was counting it.”
When Hammad wrote a reporter’s diary on the incident and revealed the face of the policeman as he was counting the money, the police officers in Arkilla secretly returned the N5,000 to him.
The officers who aided the factory owner while he was being manhandled have, however, not been punished by the police.
TRAUMA AND HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE AFTER THE ABUSE
Hammad told FIJ he was traumatised as a result of the incident.
“I became traumatised as a result of everything I went through. A doctor I also visited for a medical check revealed to me that I had developed high blood pressure,” said Hammad.
“The trauma I suffered also prevented me from documenting my findings for days.
“When the story was eventually published by TheCable on August 11, I received a call from a lawyer who claimed he was representing the pure water manufacturer, I mean Al-Sharif Pure Water, on August 13.
“He said his client reported me to him and that he would like to hear my side of the story. When I explained the hell I went through in the hands of his client to him, he told me his client had no case and ended the call.”
THE CALLS FROM SOKOTO DSS
On August 15, Hammad received a phone call from an official of the Department of State Services (DSS) in Sokoto who introduced himself as Muhammed Ahmed.
“The official said I had been invited to come for questioning at the DSS office in Sokoto,” Hammad told FIJ.
“I told him that I was no longer in Sokoto. The officer then went on to issue a threat that if I refused to honour the invitation, the DSS would see to it that I got arrested.
“On Tuesday, the same official called me again, telling me that I should take the second call he had made as his last warning. He added that it was best I honoured the invitation on my own.”
After the second phone call from the DSS official, the management of TheCable asked the DSS to write a letter of invitation to the company as a precursor to the journalist showing up.
The Sokoto DSS insisted, however, that it would not directly deal with the newspaper.
Further options, which included an interview with Hammad at the Abuja office of the secret police, provided by TheCable were also rejected.
WHAT HAMMAD FURTHER FOUND AFTER HE HAD 16 PURE WATER PRODUCED IN SOKOTO TESTED AT A LABORATORY
While concluding his investigation, Hammad took 16 sachets of water (Al-Sharif Pure Water included) for testing at a laboratory in Sokoto.
The following conclusion was made by the laboratory while submitting its report to the freelance journalist:
“The laboratory tested 16 sachets of water: six out of the sixteen tested positive for Bacteria, suggesting that the sachets are contaminated.
“The water was therefore declared unsafe for consumption.”
Hammad told FIJ that after he purchased a sachet of Al-Sharif water, he left it untouched for a day. When he went to check the water the following day, he noticed that several particles and sediments had settled in it.
FIJ understands that DSS Sokoto told Hammad that the sachet water story he did was the reason for the invitation.
The secret police would, however, not tell him whether Al-Sharif had something to do with it or not.
