Government in Africa must be pressurized to live up to expectation in order to make the continent retain its best brains being lost to other continents in name of greener pastures.
To do this, the media is in a prime position despite challenges to promote inclusive governance, accountability and rule of law so at to reduce excessive urge in Africans in search for greener pastures elsewhere.
These are the positions of the Chairman of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Lagos State Council, Dr Qasim Akinreti while speaking at an international virtual summit.
Delivering a key note address at the summit that had participants and speakers from different continents, titled “Media Governance and Economic Dynamics”, the NUJ Chairman posited that media must continue to inform, educate and entertain with the purpose of making government and the people accountable for their actions in the best interest of the society and overall public good.
He noted that in some countries, particularly in Europe and America, citizen’s engagements platforms and tools were available to build consensus on public projects, enhance effectiveness and service delivery such that if a public project failed the test of public scrutiny and satisfaction, the contractors were made to refund tax payers money and prosecuted for nonperformance.
“Since it is the rights of citizens to seek for the attainment of good governance at its best for economic prosperity, people migrate there in droves. These countries in Africa, Europe, America, Asia accordingly. Apart from South Africa, Botswana, and Libya before the death of Gaddafi attracted influx of migrants. Rwanda after its prognosis is now a home for good governance and migrants are now interested in living in that country.
“Surely, the media have assisted greatly to tell stories of successes in good governance, leading to economic prosperity of some countries and the people are determined to migrate there. But the media have failed to tell other challenging lifestyle of these societies, thus given a false hope to the people who are ready to migrate there.
“The story of equal opportunity in Europe and America are quite fascinating. But racial discriminations are not given more prominence. The Golden Fleece in the Arab world is not too enticing, but the racial inequalities are not given utmost prominence. Unlike in Europe and American where migrants attain citizenship after a long stay or by marriage, the Arab world does not accommodate these opportunities.” he hinted.
Dr.Akinreti charged the media to explore its position as the fourth estate of realm to fight for public good to bring about accountability and good governance.
“The legislature makes the law to guide policies, the judiciary interprets the law and the executive actualizes the law and policies for public interests and public good. A case in point is the Freedom of Information Act, FOI, in Nigeria. This Act gives everyone access to request for information on public policies from agencies and institutions of government.
“For this discourse on migration, everyone is entitled to full disclosures on the activities of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) and the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM).
“Then the media must change the narrative, make government accountable to implement people oriented policies that will attract economic prosperity. The nexus between the media, governance and economic development are too germane for addressing the challenges of migration. Journalists owe everyone a duty to ensure sustainable development of our society” he added.
Dr. Akinreti said the society equally owes the media tremendous support and the government must provide a virile such as prompt attention on welfare and other sustainable factors for the media to survive.
Adedayo Adelowo
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