STAKEHOLDERS WARN ON SAFETY

STAKEHOLDERS WARN ON SAFETY

BY ABDULMUMINI ADEKU…

 

Stakeholders from the Nigerian media sector have agreed to pull all stops together at ensuring public safety of all practicing journalists in Nigeria and even beyond.

At a recent stakeholders meeting held at the International Press Centre in Ogba,Lagos,Nigeria ,media experts were of the view that it was very paramount for them to take steps at helping to assuage the pains of those working assiduously to make governments accountable to the people as enshrined by the laws of the land.

In his welcome address,The Executive Chairman of The International Press Centre ,Mr Lanre Arogundade said that they were embarking on the Nigerian Journalists Safety Initiative  due to the recent wave of attack on reporters in Nigeria .

He listed amongst several others the recent attack on the Channels Television  correspondent who was abducted by some gun men .

He noted that the celebration of this years’ press freedom day coincides with the 250 years of the freedom of information bill in Sweden  and a lot of presentations were made in Helsinki on the safety of reporters worldwide with Professor Umaru Pate of Bayero University ,Kano presenting a paper aside from several other Nigerians.

He told the gathering that they have identified four different divisions of people who could face any form of attack in Nigeria and these are the Nigerian Police, Politicians and gangsters,Unknown gunmen and miscreants.

He assured that they were monitoring the situation as safety was key in the works of every reporter .

In his own opinion, The Assistant Media Monitoring Officer of the International Press Centre,Mr Victor Osungboun told the gathering that he selected four different newspapers for his survey in the process of gathering his data.

He listed The Guardian tissue paper,The Nation tissue paper,The Punch Newspapers and the Daily Trust Newspapers as the editorial titles used for the exercise.

He pointed out such criteria’s used  for the survey for the  data gathering as name, medium, attacker, circumstance among others.

Assistant Media Officer , International Press Centre on safety alert, Miss  Melody Akinjiyan while explaining to the gathering how the safety alert initiative works out said that once they were called on their hotlines to be alerted  they can come to the aid of the reporter.

She speaks:”we can tell the caller depending on the attack to get to the nearest police station ,we can issue a press release and alert or even get in touch with any of our international press partners.

In her own contributions, Miss Toyin Ayoade also affirmed the statement credited to her colleagues when she introduced herself to the gathering as part of the safety campaign team alongside Mr Sanmi Falobi ,Program officer of  the International Press Centre in Lagos,Nigeria.

Mr Peter Nkanga, West African Representatives of the Committee to Protect Journalists in his own assessments of the scenario, said that the media profession demands that every practitioner show a lot of boldness at all times as there were several emotions involved on the job.

He assured that as media experts journalists are expected to make governments accountable at all times.

He disclosed that at least 1189 reporters had being killed in line of duty since 1992  and noted that reporters in the field of human rights, politics and corruption easily attracts a lot of attacks on them.

He introduced Ms  Augustina Ogbonna Armstrong a former Federal Radio Corporation of Nigerian freelancer as  the latest among the list of persecuted reporters for their professional works.

This reporter also gathered how a certain Mr Yusuf Onimisi Siyaka was detained by the State Security Services for 12 days for live blogging the attempted jail break of Boko Haram detainees while the latter were in custody.

It was discovered that more than half of journalists in detention since 2014 were online reporters