2023: Youths Surer Of Presidential, Than Governorship Choice

The youths are more certain who to vote for as presidential candidate than governorship. This is a revelation from interactions and speculations at a two-day training on Investigative Journalism, Inclusive Development and Accountability organized for journalists from four Niger Delta States in Port Harcourt.
Giving a goodwill message on behalf of the APC governorship candidate, Tonye Cole, Douglas Doyi-Bobmanuel, said in his interaction with four youths on their preferred candidates for governorship and presidential candidates, the finding was that three out of the four have Peter Obi as their preferred candidate for the nation’s number one seat, that they were yet to decide who to vote for in the governorship election.At his presentations on Media, Ethics and Development, veteran journalist, public relations guru and respected Niger Delta elder Amaopusenibo Bobo Brown attracted a chorus of Obidients as he recalled Nigeria’s journey to its present sorry state where a few elites are holding the majority in servitude, poverty and captivity. He said frustration from this long sorry state is giving rise to the growing agitation for a movement to take-back Nigeria for which Peter Obi, the Labour Party candidate is the face.
Bobo Brown said societal behavior is determined by the economy and the current political system has excluded people from participation and weakened institutions including the media.
Said he: “The economy shapes the behaviour of people. Hunger drives you to unimaginable levels. We have to drive godsend attributes to rise to the global challenge in the media profession.”
The former national president of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, NIPR, said while in the 1940s and 1950s, politicians courted the media, since 1999, the political system has excluded public participation, making the media irrelevant.
“In the 1940s and 50s, every politician wanted to and or be affiliated to a newspaper. But from 1999, the political system excluded public participation. This was escalated in 2021 by the People Democratic Party, PDP and All Progressive Congress, APC style of participation in elections,” he said.
This act too, according to him, neutralized every institution in place in the country. He added that politicians no longer read news but do facebook and other social media. Further dissocializing them from the system.
To overcome the current state of irrelevance this has made the media, he advised the media to reorganize and pursue competence to be stronger as well as build group momentum.
Furthermore, Bobo Brown advised that the media should collectively “focus our audience on the big issues to change our environment, apply, organized intelligent noise to win the battle to make leaders read or watch news,” and make society better.
The two-day training which held August 4 to 6 at Habitat Hotel, Port Harcourt was a collaborative project with the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism and was funded by the MacArthur Foundation. The objective was to deepen the knowledge and capacity of media practitioners in the Niger Delta. Participants, numbering 47 are drawn from Bayelsa, Edo, Rivers and Delta States.