National Point Holds 2-Day Media Training On Investigative Reporting, Inclusive Development And Accountability For Journalists In Niger Delta

For two consecutive days, Thursday, 4thto Friday, 5th August 2022, practicing journalists from Niger Delta region of Nigeria, converged in the conference Hall of Habitat Hotel and Resort, Rumualogu, NTA/Choba Road, Port Harcourt, where they brainstormed on “Investigative Reporting, Inclusive Development and Accountability.” The two-day media training was courtesy of National Point Newspaper/Foreword Communications Ltd, with the support of Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ)and MacArthur Foundation.
In her opening remark, the Managing Director of National Point newspaper, Ibiba DonPedro traced the story of National Point to 2007 when it was founded by herself and Chief Constance Meju with notable and experienced journalists/activists like Patrick Naagbanton, Oronto Douglas (both late), Steve Obodoekwe and others, to specifically project the Niger Delta, the hub of the oil and gas industry, the mainstay of the Nigerian economy.
While paying tribute to the Late Naagbanton and Douglas for their contributions to National Point, Niger Delta and Human/Environmental Rights Activism, she reminded participants that, “the essence of our being here is to deepen our understanding on investigative journalism,” and urged them to make use of the opportunity provided by the training to improve on their reports.
Also speaking, the Managing Editor of National Point newspaper, Chief Constance Meju explained that better plans for diversity requires that people should ask questions about how they are being governed.
“So, our objective is that after you have stayed here for two days, and when you go back, there will be some changes in the way you report. Your report becomes deeper and you better more of our society, and you will sell the Niger Delta better to the outer Nigerians, because a lot of people don’t want to hear about Niger Delta, they think we are militants, they don’t know why we’re militant and they don’t know what our pressures are. Our pressures need to be understood, that’s why we’re here”, she said.
Chief Meju expressed her appreciation to WSCIJ and MacArthur Foundation for their collaboration, as well as to the participating journalists for honoring their invitation.
According to her, “What we are doing is like expecting collaborative partnership so that more people will be on board this journey. For Journalists, integrity is very important because, if one finger stains oil it goes round others.”
In his goodwill message, an environmentalist/activist, Prof Nenibarini Zabbey applauded the issues lined up for discussion, noted that gender based violence was becoming prominent in the society and advised media practitioners to see what they could glean out of the training.
In another goodwill message, the Chairman of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Rivers State chapter, Beatrice Itubo, who is also the Labour Party Governorship candidate in the State, commended the programme.
Itubo, who was represented by Comrade Comfort Otuene, said, “Journalists in Rivers State are those that made her voice to be heard,” and urged journalists to help change the narrative about the Niger Delta as the region was not about militancy.
In her message, the Senatorial candidate of Allied Peoples Movement, APM, for Rivers South-East, Dr. Patience Osaroejiji expressed happiness for the opportunity granted her to be at the event, and urged the participants to take the lessons of the training seriously.
“I’m very happy to be here today”, she said, and charged that people should see the need to vote for credible candidates and not those who throw the money about.
“We should not sell our conscience because of money, because whatever you do the judgment is there,” Osaroejiji added.
Anchoring his talk within the context of Democracy, the representative of Architect Tonye Cole, Governorship candidate of All Progressive Congress (APC), Mr. Douglas Dodoyi-Manuel, said, “As media practitioners, you should be abreast with law and inclusive development,” he charged, saying that Tonye Cole represents accountability, inclusive development and sustainability.
He added that accountability as a direct consequence of inclusion and government should be accountable, urging all to work towards enthroning good governance.
Speaking On Security In Niger Delta; Issues and Solution, Ibiba DonPedro, observed that crisis is the common thread that was running through all the communities in the Niger Delta. “The realities are there in the communities where cultists have sacked indigenes and taken over the communities. Cultists which started with a good number of young students in the University of Calabar, have now turned a cancer in Niger Delta,” she said.
DonPedro regretted that despite huge potential for tourism, money was not being made from the sector in the Niger Delta because of piracy, cultism, kidnapping and communal clashes.
Contributing to the paper, lecture, Francis Akhigbe from Edo State said that the state was peculiar in the sense that cultism was perennial from the youths to the elderly. “About 80 percent of Edo State is cultists; the politicians, market women, traditional rulers and chiefs are into it,” he said, maintaining that secondary school students and security agents were involved.
In his paper on Human Rights Reporting, Stvyn Obodoekwe pointed out that journalists should get involved in human rights advocacy. He said human rights were so important to the world that a day, December 10 has been set aside to mark it, been the day that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was made in 1948.
He said human rights such as the right to life, the freedom of movement, the freedom of association and so on were the inalienable rights of every living human being and should be protected from denial, abuse or violation.
“Human right is not a privilege which can be given to you by anybody and taken away at any time. As a human being, Human Right is your entitlements, it is natural,” he explained.
Obodekwe said it is the responsibility of the government to guarantee citizens safety and security, adding that one has the right to sue the government when his/her rights are violated.
Speaking on Data Journalism, Sunny Dada, stressed that, Data Journalism had come to cure misinformation and fake news.
He said the journalist can use data journalism to abridge long stories and use it in the form of pictorials/ He listed the steps to data journalism as follows: identification of source (Local, National, international, and so on), filtering, analysis and visualization.
Speaking on Ethics, Media and Development, a former President of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, Amaopusenibo Bobo Brown, stated that the structure of Nigerian economy is such that it favours only an elite class and pauperises millions of others, including the media.
“The feudal system has structured the media to irrelevance; our quest for development must change for better. Our work has been made redundant by the national/global economy. We created a feudal system that disorganized every other institution,” he pointed out.
Brown then declared, “We must break the rules of loneliness of gathering news. Break the rules of professional loneliness; team work is important as journalists. We can restructure by forming media cooperatives amongst ourselves and approach the banks for loan.”
He noted that the system we are operating in has no room for efficiency, adding that the more inefficient you are the more you are protected to protect the system.
“The media environment in which we work has changed, the feudal system we find ourselves has made us (media) inefficient,” he observed, saying that the feudal system is vertically structured to favour some people that are not efficient.