Mr Lanre Ogundipe is a one- time president of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ). He is one of the nominees of the union at the National Conference. In this interview with Emeka Nze, he examines early attempts to undermine the media and why the media is subsumed under the Science and Technology committee. He said what is referred to as brown envelope is a method of giving a dog a bad name to hang it, as other professions receive payments for their jobs. He also said government has no business in media ownership but should only pay subventions to the media instead of leaving it at the mercy of advertisers.
What is the place of the media in this conference because it seems that the media is being undermined and the practitioners and other admirers of the media are worried? What is your take on this?
Well I have not seen what you have seen but there was an attempt we saw at the beginning of this conference, that certain groups wanted to muzzle the press but you could see that we rose up against it and the idea was stopped even by the civil society. I have not seen any attempt now by the people to gag the press or to try to muzzle the press but if there are certain areas which you think we should focus on for the purpose of this discussion, raise them.
The issue of the media being subsumed in the Science and technology committee is still worrisome to the some of the practitioners.
The fact is that I served in that committee you are referring to and a subcommittee was created for the media and I want to tell you that those of us who served in that committee were media persons, starting from Vincent Maduka, myself, the former editor in chief of New Nigeria, Ezekiel Ewure and a few others. You see, this has been an age long issue by the governments in its attempts to deny the fourth estate of the realm its due share in the scheme of things. We made a case for it, we were turned down by the people who ought to have even known better that when you refer to the three tiers of government, the constitution of the Federal Republic ought to recognise the fourth estate of the realm and what we are saying is how can you give somebody a responsibility without the enablement with which to do the assignment. So we took up the gauntlet from that point, I mean those of us who are media persons. We drew up our own memo which was submitted to the conference and suggestions were made. Those of us who were in the committee had the privilege to defend most of these things and I think the conclusion will be in the interest of the media practitioners in this country. The way we put it we have not had it so good and if you oblige me your email I can send to you what we submitted but I don’t want to go into detail.
What were the reasons adduced for subsuming media unde the Science and Technology Committee?
Sincerely, I would not hold brief for the conference. I don’t know their reasons neither will I stand or say this is what I think. Since they said we should go and work with the Science and Technology, you see that in the 21st century media has developed with the Internet Technology (IT). You find it so convenient that majority of us now operate on that broad line of IT; virtually all the newspapers are now online. If that is complying with the technological development in our industry, why not? Two, the social network has also made it so imperative for us that we now have a competitor in the industry and they have come to stay, let us not deceive ourselves that anybody can wish the social media away. What we are saying is that there must be some rules to govern their activities. The privilege of just saying you can do whatever you want and run anybody down, you can impugn on characters and all that, no. that’s not good for our image and we feel strongly that there should be some sort of control. Now everybody just goes to the online to report issues without giving you an in-depth analysis of what they are saying, without even telling you the background of the story, or Mr ‘A’ does not like this one or another one writing another story that is offensive to another; he wants to blow it out of proportion, all those ones should be curbed. That is why in that committee we also talked about the rules and the ethics for those who prefer to work online as a media personnel and again for government to come up with some sort of guidelines.
Largely, we feel that the government is not doing anything for the media in this country. The media is left at the vagaries of advertising and the owners to determine the lot of the operators, I mean journalists, in this case. We felt that is not good enough; even those that are on essential duties like the law enforcement agents and the rest of them; journalists must also be given a cover in the course of their duties. Look at the bomb blast in Kano; see the number of journalists we lost, what has the government done? Nothing. What has their families benefitted? Nothing, and if we are to be policemen or SSS agents, the state will do something through their agency. What we are saying is that there must be a Trust Fund that will also insure the lives of journalists and also such persons will be entitled to some remedies if he is either stopped or hindered from performing his lawful duties. So those are things we have recommended.
During your committee work, which country’s model were you following in working out a model for media practice in Nigeria?
I have traversed the entire globe to put it mildly and I have seen, even in our neighbouring countries in the sub-region of West Africa; if you go to all the Francophone countries, you will see that government gives grants to the media on an annual basis and that is to ensure the kind of collaboration between the government and the media and furthermore, to insulate them from the vagaries of all these market forces. With that, we are also suggesting that any media owner that defaults in payment of salaries should receive certain punishments.
What are the punishments?
I won’t tell you; wait for my chairman when he would be counting them on the floor because it is our profession, we need to protect ourselves. How do you expect colleagues to work for months and not get paid salary and then they will come and close up without notice after using journalists to achieve their goals.
The issue of “brown envelop”, did you see it in the course of your work in the committee as a problem?
My brother I know nothing about brown envelop. If you talk about brown envelop, tell me any professional that does not receive fee for its services; what are you being paid for calling journalists to a press conference and one idiot will be putting N5,000 into your hands. Is that what will free you from the vestiges of the economy? Anybody that mentions brown envelope, tell him that he is mad, he is mentally wild. What is so brown envelope? Do you go into any doctor’s clinic and come out free without receiving a bill. When they call you for a press conference, how much do you charge them?
To what extent can government be involved in the control of the media?
It is not their business and that’s what we have fought against all these years. Look at the government media establishments themselves, have they received enough subventions? Look at the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA); look at all the government radio stations, have they not turned them into personal things? So why should government be involved? That is the question and don’t forget that those channels were meant to inform, to educate and to entertain the populace but now they have turned them to parochial interests of the people in government.
What is your critique of the media coverage of the conference?
I must say our colleagues have done wonderfully very well. Yes there might be one or two flaws here and there, nobody is infallible. I want to give it to them that they have done brilliantly well.