By Tina George, Minna
The Executive Director of the International Press Center, IPC, Mr Lanre Arogundade has charged journalists, to win back public trust by holding as sacrosanct their constitutional obligation of monitoring governance and holding government accountable to the people.
He made the charge during a two-day media training workshop on use of Freedom of Information, FOIA, for Investigative Reports on Campaign Finance and COVID-19 Accountability Issues in Abuja.
According to him, there is need for journalists to overcome the growing perception that the Nigerian media has been compromised and that investigative journalism is dead in the country.
“We therefore have the challenge of winning back public trust by holding as sacrosanct, the constitutional obligation imposed on us by the constitution to monitor governance and hold government accountable to the people.
“While not being oblivious of the obstacles that confront us daily, including all forms of threats by the government and the political class, for which we require our media professional associations and bodies to be proactive in confronting, we must still realise that our best defence lies in sticking to good journalism”, he urged the Journalists who were drawn from the northern states and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.
He said that the workshop, which is in collaboration with Media Rights Agenda, MRA, and supported by the EU-SDGN, will help the journalists to understand the frameworks and issues in campaign finance, understanding the FOIA and best practices in investigating and reporting political/campaign finance issues.
“The workshop will look at the need for journalists to embrace investigative methods in reporting COVID-19 issues, largely because of the perception, and perhaps the reality the funding aspect of the fight against the pandemic is not meeting the requirements of transparency and accountability with so many questions hanging out there,” he said.
In his remarks, the Executive Director, of MRA, Mr Edetean Ojo said that transparency and accountability are imperative for the effectiveness of the measures taken by government at the federal and state levels, to curtail the spread of COVID-19 and mitigate the negative economic impact brought about by the virus on the citizens.
According to him, journalists need to be vigilant to ensure that the funds meant for COVID-19, are not misappropriated or misapplied, pointing out that effective regulation of political campaign financing, is essential to the success of ensuring free, fair and credible election in Nigeria.
“There is need for all of us to be vigilant to the governance process because if we are not vigilant and the funds meant for COVID-19 are stolen, misappropriated, misapplied or in any other way diverted for any other purpose, the objective of the response will not be achieved.
“In such a situation, the consequences are better examined than experienced. All of us, journalists or not, will be at the receiving end.”
The Director, Centre for Social Justice, CSJ, Abuja, Mr. Eze Onyekpere taught participants how to understand and report campaign finance and political expenditure frameworks and issues; while Freelance Investigative Journalist, Tobore Ovuorie taught them how to use investigative reporting techniques, to monitor compliance with campaign finance and political expenditure regulations.
Mr Edetean Oji took the participants through key features of FOIA 2011, while the Head of Mass Communication in Baze University, Abuja, Dr Abiodun Adeniyi took them on how to deploy the FoIA and other investigative tools in reporting COVID-19 funds in the public interest.
