By Onofiok Luke
This year’s elections into executive positions of the Akwa Ibom state council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists is taking a strange and indecorous dimension. Perhaps, never have admirers of the great union been so taken aback by the conduct of some of its members as in the campaigns for the upcoming elections.
As those whose commentaries and editorials are often crafted to reprehend poor public behaviour and hyperaggressive electoral conduct by politicians, one would expect professional journalists to grab hold of opportunities like this NUJ election to show some sterling examples to the political class.
One would have expected election campaigns by bodies like the NUJ to serve as the template for mainstream political campaigners. The ongoing mudslinging, lies, intemperate criticisms, the pushing of hot buttons, and spreading of pernicious propaganda on every side of the campaigns ahead of the NUJ election are compelling pointers to a lack of sense of propriety, and this is sad for a media community which has done greatly in the last ten years to keep politicians in the state on the track of good conduct. As one whose number one family in the state are members of the press community, I am saddened by the fact that the tactics employed by some politicians, and for which our media people rebuke them, are the same being employed by the journalists in the build-up to the NUJ election. By what is happening, our journalists may unknowingly be sending the message to us politicians that when a particular interest is defined, they can always get members of the pen profession, who should be watchdogs, to do any bidding. This should not be the case.
While one is not expecting perfection, one expects that, to a great extent, NUJ activities such as an election, should serve as a paradigm for union activities anywhere given what the media urges of others. We should be seeing an NUJ election as the model for issue-based politicking. Let us take a cue from the elections recently conducted for offices in the Society for Professional Journalists, SPJ, across the US. We can do even better!
I write as a concerned friend and one who has immensely benefitted from the very objective and vibrant media community that we have in our state. It is my hope that the distinguished members of the Akwa Ibom NUJ will look back inward and continue on the path of excellent conduct for which we have always known them.
Onofiok Akpan Luke
A concerned friend of the press community and a beneficiary of the media objectivity in Akwa Ibom state
A concerned friend of the press community and a beneficiary of the media objectivity in Akwa Ibom state
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