2011: Akunyili Explains Journalists’ Roles As Fashola Donates Houses To Murdered Journalists

L-R: INFORMATION MINISTER, PROFESSOR DORA AKUNYILI AND LAGOS STATE GOVERNOR, BABATUNDE FASHOLA, SAN.

LAGOS, May 14, (THEWILL) - The Minister for Information and Communication, Prof. Dora Akunyili has said the success of the 2011 General Elections depends on the manner the country’s journalists discharge their responsibilities in ensuring fair and dispassionate reporting.

She also decried the recent killing of a journalist with The Nation Newspaper, Mr. Edo Sule Ugbagwu, urging the key actors in the business and political circles not to resort to killing even when their interests are threatened.

The minister yesterday expressed these misgivings at a media stakeholders’ debate on “150 Years of Journalism: How Far?” organized by Lagos Council of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Lagos, where critical media practitioners raised questions on the unresolved murders of journalists in the last two decades.

Speaking at the forum, Akunyili explained the imperative need for electoral matters to be reported with a spirit and principle of dispassionate arbitration, emphasizing that it was important to report electoral matters dispassionately while tasking journalists to be objective, rigorous and thorough in their reports.

The minister added that the country’s journalists identify thorough investigation, journalistic fairness and balance in reporting electoral matters as major criteria to ensure that the 2011 General Elections are freer, fairer and more credible.

Akunyili said: “For us to have the much needed and desired free and fair elections, reports on the event must be thoroughly and rigorously investigated to unearth and publicize truth and truth only. The courage to publish truth or perish must attain canonical status in journalism after 55 years of NUJ”.

The minister expressed her displeasure with the manner the country’s journalists constitute the victims of targeted killings in the country, citing the sad memories of the former Assistant News Editor of The Guardian, Mr. Bayo Ohu and The Nation Correspondent, Mr. Edo Sule Ugbagwu who were gruesomely murdered. 

The minister therefore advised journalists to be cautious in discharging their responsibilities and implored stakeholders in business and political circles to rein in the propensity to desire to kill a man whose only weapon is his pen.

In his address, Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) donated a 3-bedroom flat each to the families of former Bayo Ohu of The Guardian and Edo Sule Ugbagwu of The Nation Correspondent, Mr. Edo Ugbagwu and expressed strong appreciation on the strategic role of journalism in nation-building.

The governor, who the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Comrade Opeyemi Bamidele represented at the forum, asked journalists to adopt sociological approach in discharging their responsibilities, saying that the approach would help rebrand Nigeria and her citizens in the comity of nations.

Fashola explained that the same approach was used in South Africa when apartheid regime fell. We can adopt the same approach in Nigeria by deploying our cultural and traditional values to promote ourselves. This is the only way we can attract foreign investors and rebrand our country internationally”.

On his part, Editor of THISDAY Sunday, Barrister Yusuph Olaniyonu described the failure of the National Assembly to pass the Freedom of Information (FoI) Bill as a lost opportunity, thus calling the minister to use her good office to re-initiate the FoI Bill as an executive bill given its salience to achieve objective reporting.

Olaniyonu explained how high inflation impacted negatively on the welfare of journalists, canvassed passage of FoI Bill, tasked publishers on capacity building and training and asked journalists to be careful and thorough in their reports.