Hold Public Office Holders Accountable, Nsirim Tasks Journalists

The 2021 Correspondents’ Chapel of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Rivers State Council’s week kicked off, last Monday, with a charge by the Commissioner for Information and Communications, Pastor Paulinus Nsirim, to journalists to continue to hold public office holders accountable in all their actions.
He admitted that journalists were facing challenges from hoodlums, thugs, and even security agents.
Represented by the Director, Public Enlightenment, Ministry of Information, Mr Celestine Ogolo, Nsirim said the Rivers State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike, has granted unhindered access to information in the state.
He described the theme of the event as apt and revealing.
While declaring the event open, the commissioner emphasized that the governor has done well in providing infrastructural facilities for the people, pointing out that Rivers State in the near future will become a model to other states in the country.
In his opening speech, the Chairman of the occasion, Chief Ogbonna Nwuke, said journalism would continue to determine the future of the society as Fourth Estate of the Realm.
Nwuke, who was a former member of House of Representatives, commended the Correspondents’ Chapel for organising the press week despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
He noted that the event was an avenue for journalists to rob minds on the way forward.
He specifically lauded the Correspondents’ Chapel’s Chairman, Mr Amaechi Okonkwo, for doubling as Caretaker Committee (CTC) chairman of the State Council of NUJ, urged him to sustain the tempo while ensuring that the State Council of NUJ returns to normal.
Also speaking, the Director, Corporate Communications of Indorama Petrochemicals and Fertiliser Company, Dr Jossy Nkwocha, said gone were the days when journalists aspired to end up as veterans.
He challenged journalists to instead leverage on their positions to become lecturers, political leaders, business tycoons, and urged them to start the journey by registering business names to compete in the corporate world.
Nkwocha equally said that there was nothing wrong with journalists transforming from reporters to become authors and earn good money, and urged them to research on topics around their areas of coverage and do books out of them.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Chairman of Correspondents’ Chapel, Mr Amaechi Okonkwo, had said that the event was “a period of self-examination, review, and relaxation with friends of the Correspondents’ Chapel in Rivers State and beyond.”
According to him, it is ironical or pathetic that journalists who preoccupy themselves with fighting and defending others are kept captive by many issues in their operational environment.
He cited the lockdown era, occasioned by COVID-19, where he said journalists went all out to defend the society as frontline workers, but ended up being neglected when frontline workers were being listed and compensated.
Okonkwo also said that it is regrettable that media practitioners as members of the Fourth Estate of the Realm globally, have not been allowed to occupy that position in Nigeria by deliberate hostile policies of government for reasons best known to them.
“That rating or consideration is only true in other climes and not in the case of Nigeria,” he said.
The Correspondents’ Chapel chairman stressed that evidence has shown that the first to third estates have taken up all the spaces in the realm leaving no one for the media.
He said this year’s chapel’s week is to assert the space of the Fourth Estate.
He further pinpointed poor remuneration of Journalists, lack of insurance policy for media practitioners, among others, as deficiencies that have left the media and journalists at the mercy of harsh economic realities.
He said this has made it impossible for them to operate at full capacity.
The theme of the week is, ‘Survival of Journalists in Security and Economic Uncertainties in Nigeria; Focus on Strategic Reporting of the Maritime Sector’.

By: Nelson Chukwudi