June 12: NUJ Holds Democracy Lecture, Tasks Journalists To Expose Political Thieves

As Nigeria officially marked democracy day on Wednesday, June 12, in honour of late Moshood Abiola, the acclaimed winner of the1993 election, the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Kaduna State Council, held its maiden lecture to review role of the media in democracy and good governance.

The public lecture, held at popular Arewa House, Kaduna, according to the Vice President (Northwest) of NUJ, Comr Yusuf Idris, became necessary to awaken the media practitioners to be alive to their constitutional responsibility of holding government accountable to the citizens.

Doing justice to the theme of the lecture, “Strengthening democracy, good governance and role of the media”, Earstwhile Chairman of the Kaduna Council of the union, a veteran journalist, Andrew Fadason, decried how Nigeria democracy has been bastardised by politicians over the years.

Speaking specifically on the first four years of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) at the federal level, Fadason expressed concern over the way and manners in which about N30 trillion appropriation within the year under review was expended without proportionate impact on Nigerians.

According to a former Editor of New Nigerian Newspapers (Weekend), “About N30trn has been appropriated in the past four years. What has happened to this money. Journalists have not been holding public officehilders to account. It is time for activism journalism. 

“There are many ways we can hold these people accountable to their followers. For example, Nigerian journalists should know they hold the key to Nigerian future. They must ask questions.

“They must tell electorate not to vote for those political thieves when they come to canvass for their votes after years of failed representation,” he said.

Earlier, Chairman of the occasion, Chief Executive Officer of Dialogue Group of Companies, Alh Mahdi Shehu, attributed the misfortune bedevilling the country to serial lies and deceptive nature of Nigerians especially a sizable number of their past and present leaders.

To him, despite the current situation the country has found itself, Nigerians have pretentiously agreed that things are moving on as expected which he described as “unfortunate”.

“Most Nigerians are shameless and that is why Nigeria is sick. If we are persistently doing bad and we are not repentant, the judgement day awaits all of us.

“Politicians delude Nigerians into errantly believing lies and inaccuracy of their stewardship and this is the time for serious journalists to be professionals and to be upright at all times to defend the integrity of country.

”You must not allow your medium to use you to destroy humanity”, he advised.