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By Chukwumaechi Godwin, Port Harcourt
As political activities enter the frenzy mode ahead of the 2023 general elections, the Nigerian Guild of Editors, NGE, has declared that it would adopt ‘demarketing’ strategy as part of its agenda setting role, to protect Nigeria’s tottering democracy.
To this end, the editors said they would demarket politicians who clearly have nothing tangible or enviable to offer towards furthering and deepening the democratic culture in Nigeria.
This position was arrived at Thursday in Port Harcourt at the end of the 3-day United States Embassy-sponsored capacity building conference for editors and senior political correspondents on press freedom and democratic consolidation for the South-South region.
The decision was part of the numerous take-homes from the conference which many participants described as timely, engaging and relevant to current challenges of the nation’s democracy.
The editors agreed that the demarketing strategy was necessitated by the theatrics that have characterised the pre-election activities that are making the country look like a mockery of democracy to the rest of the world.
The guild said they would target questionable political characters and “diplomatically demarket” them for the best interest of the development and sustenance of democracy in Nigeria.
Articulating the take-homes, Tony Iyare, a fellow of the NGE and former special adviser on media affairs to former Edo State governor, Adams Oshiomole, stated that the guild members needed the strategy to expose some of the questionable characters dotting the political space, thereby helping the electorate to make informed choices during the election.
He said; “editors should in the performance of their duties galvanise the electorate by putting in the public space what they should know about the individual politicians to enable them to make their choices”.
He added that journalists generally should also include journalistic activism as part of their agenda setting role. “They should not stop at just reporting alone, but intensity interpretative and investigative journalism. We did it in the past during the dark days of the military era and we can still do it again”.
Iyare stressed; “it is in the intrinsic interest of the media to sustain democracy, for it is in the survival of democracy that the media is also guaranteed of its survival”.
During the panel discussion on ‘Interrogating Elements in Media Self-regulatory Frameworks,’ the editors were in agreement that it was wrong and unacceptable for an outside body to be the formulators of the regulatory framework for the practice of journalism in Nigeria.
President of the NGE, Mr. Mustapha Isah, who coordinated the panel discussion, condemned the attempt by the chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Information, to initiate a bill to propose such regulation, adding that it would be counter-productive.
He likened it to government trying to be an accuser and judge in its own matter, lamenting that while other countries were making progressive laws Nigeria is busy making retrogressive ones.
“Nigerian Press needs to propose its own bill rather than allowing government to do so”, he stated
He argued that it was not so in other African countries where journalists have laws and regulatory bodies controlled by the practitioners themselves other than government or its agencies.
Guild members agreed that stakeholders of the journalism profession were capable of and should initiate laws and regulatory framework for the profession in Nigeria, urging for collaboration among the journalism profession to propose such a bill for the regulation of the sector in Nigeria.
They advocated for the democratisation of bodies like the Nigerian Broadcasting Organisation, NBO, the Nigerian Press Council, NPC and other related press bodies, including NGOs, to empower them to play their roles effectively.
