The age-long demand by right-meaning Nigerians for all journalists in the country to be provided with insurance cover to protect and bolster them to discharge their responsibilities effectively was reiterated by the President, Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), Mr Mustapha Isah, during an interview with reporters in Abuja.
Isah indicated that such an insurance policy would motivate journalists to go the extra mile to pick up credible stories and disseminate reliable information. According to him, “insurance cover for journalists in the country was an urgency and would promote their resolve, increase performance and productivity in the media enterprise. Journalists in Nigeria are practising in a complicated and occasionally dangerous atmosphere, putting their lives on the line.”
“Some of us were infected in the process. Also, some journalists lost their lives in Kano and Abuja during the Shi’a protest. As we speak now, a reporter from Vanguard Newspaper is missing and has not been found. Journalists should have insurance cover. CNN would not take you without getting an insurance cover for you. That is why their journalists would be audacious to report even from the war front,” the NGE president declared.
Last year, the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) made an identical proposal to the Federal Government and diverse stakeholders to procure life assurance for journalists, who are on the frontline in the coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic. The union also called for the provision of sufficient and effective Personal Protection Equipment (PPEs) and palliatives to mitigate the suffering these journalists encounter daily while on their various duties.
The National President of the NUJ, Chris Isiguzo, stated: “We call on the federal and state governments to take note of the fact that journalists, like in conflict situations, are daily exposed to grave danger as a result of their professional calling. Accordingly, we call for life insurance for journalists, who are on the frontline in the coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic, provision of adequate and effective Personal Protection Equipment (PPEs) and palliatives to ease hardships they daily encounter while on their respective assignments.”
Many vocations are acknowledged to pose no actual danger to the wellbeing and contentment of their practitioners. However, the same cannot be said about journalism. Being a practising journalist is among the most precarious tasks that anybody could undertake in, not in the least because of the environment in which journalists labour. 
Because journalists traverse any height to investigate and uncover facts and publish the same, some of which may be delicate and at variance with certain vested interests, they usually discover themselves in conditions that pose considerable risk and peril to their wellbeing, and indeed lives. This is besides the impediment of meeting deadlines to enter reports and stories to their media organisations. 
A UNESCO report of the International Programme for Development of Communication (IPDC) titled, “Journalists’ Safety Indicators (JSI) — Related Project in Nigeria 2014 — 2015″, initiated a survey known as “Baseline Audit on State of Safety of Journalists in Nigeria” showing that “a total of 47 attacks against journalists were documented during the time; the attacks affected journalists from 22 national and foreign media channels; four of the 47 attacks were directed against female journalists”.
Reporters Without Borders in a 2012 report entitled “Daily Abuses Suffered by Nigerian Journalists” chronicled various designs and proportions of challenges encountered by journalists in the practice of their occupation, either functioning as freelancers or as employees of their media organisations. These stretch from harassment, threats, arrests, incursions, confinements, confiscation, and destruction to equipment and other assets, consisting of premises, to homicides, and civil suits for defamation and slander.
Recent developments in the national, cross-border and global polity have placed a lot of attention on the safety, sustainability, value, rights and moral status of the average journalist. Nigerian journalists put themselves through arduous, often uncharted channels to ensure that democracy has its loftiest expression. That is why we identify with the request for members of the profession to be granted insurance cover by their employers, whether government or private.
During the nationwide anti-SARS protests in October last year, journalists took notable risks to report the incident. Many of them would have been assailed or shot at while covering the riots. Such journalists could have become martyrs. What would have been the fate of their families with no insurance coverage? Members of the Fourth Estate of the Realm have the right to better treatment given that they toil very hard to keep the nation informed and endanger their lives in the process. Their ideas have boosted democracy in the country and held us united. 
We request the National Assembly to pass a law that would make it imperative for all Nigerian journalists to have insurance cover. The NUJ must equally make it mandatory for all journalists to be insured. This is crucial because of the hazards linked with the occupation. Nigerian journalists are repeatedly at the fore, and it is the duty of the nation to safeguard them and their households. Therefore, insurance coverage would guarantee the future of the family of every journalist, if anything goes awry.
It is not about eulogising members of the press in the land, but if they must perform in the manner they should, there is a need to cater for them and the initial step is to provide them with insurance cover. The Fourth Estate of the Realm is profoundly significant to the socio-economic development of Nigeria. So, it is time the nation stopped fiddling with the lives of journalists.