Police reports ‘hit-and-run driver killed Vanguard reporter, Tordue Salem’
By KEMI KASUMU
“The only verifiable evidence we have heard is that whereby the police has shown us his smashed iPhone and has told us it has recordings of his last conversations. That should rest the case from the unverifiable reports claiming kidnapping, so that we can properly mourn this patriotic Nigerian Journalist. It is so sad,” the source said.
The police have arrested 29-year-old Clement Itoro, in connection with the death of Vanguard newspaper reporter Henry Tordue Salem.
Force Public Relations Officer, CP Frank Mba, while parading the suspect in Friday, said Clement, a commercial driver, rammed into Tordue on October 13 and escaped from the scene of the accident on Mabushi Road in the Wuse area of Abuja.
Clement, who was paraded at Force Headquarters on Friday November 12, has also confessed to killing Tordue during the accident.
CP Mba said the police found the journalist’s body at the Wuse General Hospital mortuary on Thursday November 11 at around 11am.
There was no identity card on him, according to the police.
Reports say following the accident, hospital officials dumped Tordue’s body in the morgue with no attempts to identify the body and contact the family, which, some said, could have been done through media announcement of an ‘unidentified’ body in the morgue to serve as lead for concerned relations.
Itoro said after he rammed into the journalist, he reported the matter to some policemen, who were on patrol at the Wuse area.
However, these officers asked him to formally report the accident to the Wuse Police Station, which he did not do, apparently due to fear, we gathered.
He added that he refused to wait at the scene of the accident because the area is notorious for criminal activities at night.
He said that he immediately drove to a garage, named Good Place, where he told the man in charge of security of the garage that he had an accident killing somebody.
The man in charge of security, who was also made to speak to the press, told what he knew about the incident as captured in the video clip available to us from the briefing.
Earlier reports had suggested that Tordue, who covered Nigeria’s House of Representatives, was murdered by kidnappers, who made contact with his family.
The latest update has, however, punctured the reports as the real killer has emerged, according to the police report.
The DEFENDER’s puzzle nonetheless remains as questions about whether or not it was true that kidnappers actually contacted the family asking ransom.
These questions make some heavyweights in the country’s Journalism community expressed doubts over the police claim that hit-and-run driver killed him.
The DEFENDER’s undercover investigation revealed what some members of the society said was more believable to rest the matter as, according to one of them, no clear evidence to support claim of kidnapping.
He said, “The only verifiable evidence we have heard is that whereby the police has shown us his smashed iPhone and has told us it has recordings of his last conversations. That should rest the case from the unverifiable reports claiming kidnapping, so that we can properly mourn this patriotic Nigerian Journalist. It is so sad.
“And we say thank you to the Nigerian Police for providing us what is more a straight information from misinformation that could have led us to another confusion in matter of situation in Nigeria,” the source said.
