Before the next NUJ elections
The people are drunk on the spiritual booze
of religion or are available for mobilization
around ethno-regional platforms which the
ruling elite manipulate, but which deepen
the poverty of the people. Modibbo Kawu.
I was privileged to hear a conversation between two veteran journalists last week in Gombe about the upcoming NUJ elections and imbroglio between the ‘to be’ contestants and their supporters. I was rather surprised by the way these two veteran journalists were arguing, not on the credibility of the candidates, but from which part of the country the contestants come from. This clearly shows the level of the problem we are in this country. If an organization like the Nigerian Union of Journalists can decide who should lead them by virtue of which part of the country they come from then I can’t foresee any change in what obtains in the mainstream of Nigeria politics.
If I could remember the issue of regionalism started cropping into the Union long ago but it was not prominent till when Mr. Smart Adeyemi was elected Chairman of NUJ. Those who supported Adeyemi at the time did so according to them because he was a Northerner from Kogi state, knowing fully, Smart was more of a Lagosian than a Northerner. Anyway that was an assumption.
I wanted to be a member of NUJ when I completed my studies, however I changed my mind. By any standard I am qualified to be a member of the professionals’ body (you are an automatic member of NUJ when you read journalism or mass communication and when you are practicing). Sincerely speaking I am not quite impressed with the activities of the union. Throughout my stay in the university I had an interaction with them once, when we went to Kaduna on an excursion then. We were privileged to visit the NUJ secretariat at Muhammadu Buhari way before entering New Nigerian office.
It was General Abacha that described Nigerian journalists as ‘sectional champions’ in a long speech he delivered when alive. That statement was a food for thought for all journalists but few paid attention to what he was saying then. Today this statement is coming back as if it was said this morning.
Today being a member of NUJ does not give a guarantee that NUJ will help you if in trouble. So many examples abound but the one that strikes me most is what happened to a friend in one of the North-Eastern states. He got problem with governor of his state, the NUJ in that state folded their arms and watched him humiliated and demoted from grade level 10 to 7 in the state civil service just because of a problem that was not his making.
The NUJ in the state were busy finding a way of pleasing the governor so that at the end of the month they will collect their ‘welfare’ from the government house a token sum of N10000 for each member of NUJ or Correspondent Chapel. How on earth can anybody with his right senses think of joining an organization like this?
Thank God this person has now succeeded in obtaining a job with one of the reputable media outfit in the world and he is comfortably reporting the way a journalist can report, without fear of intimidation or sack.
This is Nigerian Union of Journalists. That is why Mallam Mohammed Haruna said that journalists do have enemies, but our greatest enemies are ourselves. To me the issue of electing northerner from Kano or Gombe does not arise because this is not what will solve the problem in NUJ. Whether we like it or not we have to sensor ourselves by adhering to laid down principles guiding the formation of the Union. If lawyers, engineers, builders, architects and others will have professional bodies I see no reason why journalists should not have one.
I want to make an appeal to our elders in the profession, I am sure they know where the problem started and they know how to solve it. Masters Ray Ekpu, Mohammed Haruna, Mahmud Jega, Dan Agbese, Kayode Soyinka, Segun Osoba, Sani Zorro, Henry Udokomoya, (Mrs.) Bilkisu Yusuf, Modibbo Kawu, Mr Clement Isiah, Adamu Adamu, with others not mentioned – I know you have your own differences, but for the sake of the profession do salvage young and new comers in this profession so that the zeal and enthusiasm with which they enter this profession will be sustained. Please do not allow this profession to be bastardized by unscrupulous element within the profession. Quacks have infiltrated this profession so much that it is very hard for a professional to practice the job they way it should be.
NUJ cannot do this because the Union has failed in many instances, that’s what I believe, because I have seen who they are and what they do in various states of the federation. It is unfortunate and pathetic and if what obtained in most states is what is practice in NUJ at the centre let us change the name to Nigerian Union of Praise Singers and Quacks, NUPSQ, it is then that we will know who we are and stop bothering about professionalism or lack of it.
Kabiru Danladi
Lawanti Village, KM25 along Gombe-Bauchi Road,
Akko Local Government Area,
Gombe State.
Kblondon2003@yahoo.com
08035150369, 08054546764