No democracy can strive without press ~ Dokubo
By Alice Micah
Chairman of Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, Rivers Council, Mr. Opaka Dokubo has said that no democracy can strive without the press.
Mr. Dokubo made the assertion at an end-of-year media dinner organized by the Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency, RSSDA.
He said: “Whoever values the peace and security in the Niger Delta and the democracy we have today, should sustain the press”.
Mr. Dokubo maintained that all government programmes, including that of corporate organizations cannot improve without the help of the press.
The NUJ boss decried the continued neglect of the press, saying that time has come for the trend to change.
In his words: “The people you see here are men and women and not boys. Most times we are seen as press boys and that image of 'boys' have followed us for so long that everybody seem not to regard us.
“We go about all our lives doing other peoples businesses, building people, and probably destroying some, but definitely taking care of others and forgetting ourselves. And the day we become too weak to do our jobs, we just fade away. Often than none, we do a thankless job”.
He called on the RSSDA to create a developmental project for journalists saying, “You are developing people in Rivers State, create a particular programme to develop journalists in the state”.
Mr. Dokubo informed that it was the bid to fight quackery in the journalism profession in Rivers State that informed the present administration of the NUJ to set up ethics and disciplinary committee as well as task force.
Speaking on the topic “The media in a Corporate Organisation, Mr. Dike Bekwele, Press Secretary to Wife of Rivers State Governor, Mrs. Judith Amaechi, condemned the negative impression about the media by individuals and organizations.
He said it was high time organizations bring in the media as partners, maintaining, “for us to have a media that is friendly, there must be collaboration from all parties”.
Mr. Bekwele pointed out that the press had played different roles in Nigeria right from colonial days, adding, “it is unfair for people to always complain that the media is misrepresenting them”.
Earlier in his opening remarks, the Chairman, Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency, RSSDA, Mr. Bolaji Ogunseye had said that the agency was open to constructive criticism.
According to Mr. Ogunseye constructive criticism was necessary to make them perform better, but that a situation where some media houses publish false stories without verification was condemnable.
He said at the inception, people were skeptical of their importance, but that now they were beginning to appreciate their duties.
Stressing that the mission of taking Rivers State to greater heights was not in the hands of the agency alone, Mr. Ogunseye noted that RSSDA us part of the development process of the state and called on hands to be on deck.
