Journalists in Nigeria as in other climes work round the clock to inform and educate the society. But contrary to how journalists in other environments are treated, Nigerian journalists could hardly be well catered for. PAUL DADA examines the need for employers of newsmen to become more committed to their employees’ welfare.
If there was anything that Eneche Akogwu,the slain Kano State Correspondent of Channels Television knew how to do, it was getting good stories. Like any other good reporter, Akogwu had a sharp nose for news.
It was this unique sense of smell for news and commitment to duty that compelled Akogwu to risk his life to cover the January 20 multiple attacks on selected places in Kano by the dreaded Boko Haram sect.
It was also a day that death decided to lay its cold hands on the 31-year old journalist. While Akogwu busied himself with the coverage of the attacks, unidentified gunmen, suspected to be Boko Haram members shot him dead.
Today, Enenche is being mourned by family, friends, colleagues and his fiancé. But beyond the mourning it is expected that there should be a welfare package in place for every dutiful journalist like Akogwu.
LEADERSHIP SUNDAY confirmed from a top management source of Channels Television that the news medium has good and encouraging welfare packages for its staff. According to the source, every worker in the television station has a life insurance coverage facilitated by the management.
While it may be true that Channels Television and some media houses are interested in the welfare of their journalists, the same cannot be said of many others. Yet there could be fewer professionals that need to be taken care of by their employers more than the gentlemen of the pen profession.
Journalism can be likened to a case of hell let loose. And journalists have to cope in that hell. The job of a journalist is not the typical and conventional resumption and? closing time of 8:00am to 4:00pm type. They are not just people who sit on cozy seats in an air-conditioned office with a coffee-filled mug on the table while treating files.
The working hours are irregular. Every reporter has to be on top of the news, on the beat they cover. And the news is there on the field, not inside the office.
In practice, there is really no resumption or closing time for a newshound who is worth his salt. Even during the oddest hours of the day, a reporter may need to be on duty trying to keep up with news as they break.
So, journalists cover war, riots, crime, fraud, and all. And woe onto that journalist who misses an important news story on the beat he covers. Hence, stress perhaps is most familiar word to a newsman.
Many journalists have suffered grueling interrogations and ill-treatments in the hands of law enforcement agents. Many have faced life-threatening situations. And no less than 50 are said to have lost their lives in questionable circumstances in the history of Nigerian press.
Notable among those who have lost their lives gruesomely were Dele Giwa, founding Editor-in-Chief of Newswatch magazine, Bagauda Kaltho of TheNews magazine, Tayo Awotunsin of Daily Champion and Krees Imodibe of The Guardian Newspapers, two budding Nigerian journalists, who died while covering the Liberian war, Godwin Agbroko, Chairman, Editorial Board, ThisDay newspaper, who was murdered in December 2006 and Bayo Ohu of The Nation. The latest is Enenche Akogwu. Unfortunately, for all these murders, no culprit has been brought to book.
However, journalists are human too. They want to have a good life. They want to have decent accommodation, get married, have children and of course, have access to the basic things in life.
However, many organisations care less concerned about the welfare of journalists. This has forced journalists to resort to depending on gratification known as “brown envelop”. Some have sought greener pasture in ministry jobs.?
There are even stories of employers of journalists who encourage their staff to engage in corporate begging of sort. They tell their reporters that their identity cards are “meal tickets” through which they can get money.
While Nigerian Journalists continue to groan under the condition of poor remuneration and lack of welfare, their counterparts employed by foreign media enjoy better treatment.
Niyi Babade, a Nigerian-born journalist with Reuters said in an interview: “Let me confess to you that good insurance scheme and quality welfare package should have long been put in place for Nigerian journalists to reduce the hazards of their profession because that is what is practicable in the Western media. The Nigeria Guild of Editors (NGE), Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) are all aware of the importance of the insurance scheme and good welfare package since it enhances quality reportage and investigative journalism.
When your life is insured, you can go all out to unearth exclusive stories without fear. When you are well paid in terms of salary and allowance, you cannot be ‘bribed,’ under any guise. If you are working for any international media organisations, mostly as one of their best hands -like I am known for exclusive media coverage of wars, you would have been sent on several training and your life insured as well. I was sent on ‘Hostile Environment’ training course by Reuters. It greatly helped my career. Let there be riots anywhere in the world, the Western press may not send you there because you have not yet acquired this special training. But the NGE, NUJ don’t know this at all, due to the average selfishness of Nigerians. It is painful they overlook the issue of insurance. The international media are aware that it is against labour laws for any practicing journalist to be sent for war coverage without being insured.”
This situation with the Nigerian journalists has generated concerns among stakeholders in the media industry and others.
Last year, in the African Press Organisation (APO),The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its African regional group, the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) in collaboration with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) foundation organised a two-day conference on the Welfare of African journalists in the Nigerian capital.
The Conference which was captioned: “The Fruit of our Labour: A New Agenda for Improving Conditions of Journalists in Africa”, was attended by the IFJ President Jim Boumelha, IFJ Secretary General Elisabeth Costa and about 30 media leaders across Africa. The Conference addressed poor working conditions of African journalists which were described as “appalling and precarious.
In his address, FAJ President Omar Faruk Osman said this about journalists: “They have no way to improve their wages and workplace conditions. Year after year, working journalists who are union members are fired, arrested and attacked for exercising their legal right to free association and their right to organise”.
“The solutions to these problems lie in our hands and we must find ways to improve the working conditions of journalists in Africa”, he said.
The Resident Representative of FES in Nigeria, Thomas Mattig, also decried the working conditions of journalists and media workers across the continent. “Many journalists work under precarious working conditions, they have no or almost no social security, no access to collective bargaining mechanisms and often they do not have a work contract or a regular salary”.
It is then not out of place to call on media owners and managers of news organisations to become more responsive to the welfare of journalists working with them.