The Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) has just arrived at the 7th floor, to use a street idiom. Its 70th birthday was announced by its President Mr Alhassan Yahya Abdullahi on March 15, an indication that the Union has reached the age of maturity having clocked three score and ten. Its history is replete with trials and triumphs but its birth came 96 years after Nigeria’s first newspaper Iwe Irohin was published in Abeokuta and five years before Nigeria gained its independence in 1960. So the birth of the NUJ came at the closing hours of the struggle for Nigeria’s liberation from colonialism.
The founding President of the Union was Mobolaji Odunewu while its pioneer Secretary was Olu Oyesanya. The Union’s major assignments in those early days were to consolidate on the fight for independence, advocating for an independent media as the country became independent. In 1962 there was the issue of the Anglo-Nigeria Defence Pact which divided Nigerians into two separate camps – one for and one against. It was the students of the University of Ibadan, not the NUJ that made the difference. The U.I students stormed Lagos with their placards and forced the Nigerian government to abandon the signing of the Anglo-Nigerian Defence Pact.
But over the years the NUJ gathered its strength and started fighting against government censorship and advocating for press freedom. In 1973 it waged a relentless battle along with other media groups for Minere Amakiri, a Nigerian Observer correspondent whose head was shaved with a broken bottle on the orders of Alfred Diete Spiff, Military Governor of Rivers State. His offence was that he reported the grievances of local teachers on the birthday of the Military Governor. This was a major battle for the media and the NUJ rose to the occasion with alacrity.
The NUJ also joined other media groups in fighting against Decree 4 of 1984 but this did not prevent the Muhammadu Buhari Military Government from sending two Guardian reporters, Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor to jail for publishing the truth. Their offence was that the offence affected either the government or government officials. After that obnoxious decision, the Buhari government was no longer courageous enough to send truth to jail.
There was also the Treason and Treasonable offences Decree No. 29 of 1993 enacted by the Sani Abacha Government. Under that decree Kunle Ajibade, Chris Anyanwu, George Mbah and Ben Charles Obi were sent to jail for 15 years. However, the mysterious death of Abacha and the ascension of General Abdulsalami Abubakar to the throne saved the journalists from serving the full 15years jail term. In this fight neither the NUJ nor any of the media groups could save the journalists from this inexplicable punishment by the tyrant.
But even with all the best efforts of the various journalism groups, journalists were turned by the irresponsible governments of Nigeria into routinely endangered species. In 1983 when I wrote a predictive article on the Nigeria External Telecommunications where there was fraud I was tried for murder because some fellows set the place on fire as was the trend in those days where there were cases of corruption. In 1986 Dele Giwa, the founding Editor in Chief of Newswatch was assassinated for no just cause. In 1987 Newswatch was shut down for publishing a report of the Cookey Committee on Democracy, a report that the Babangida Government refused to release because of his desire to continuously delay the return to democracy. Such irrational decisions were rampant in those days but neither the NUJ nor any of the other media groups could do anything significant about their reversal. In 1994 Dan Agbese, Yakubu Mohammed and Ray Ekpu, all of Newswatch were tried for mutiny. The offence was not anything close to mutiny. They were detained and tried for publishing an interview with David Mark that the Abacha government did not like. Mark was one of the coup plotters that brought Abacha to power after overthrowing Chief Ernest Shonekan, the leader of the Interim National Government set up by Babangida.
Today, there are about 740 chapels of the NUJ in the country. There are other sub-groups such as the Nigerian Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ) and the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) and a few others representing various fragments of professional groups. But the issue of major concern to professional journalists is the enlistment of Ministry of Information officials as journalists. In other countries they are called Information professionals, not journalists. I had a conversation on this with Mr Smart Adeyemi who was President of the NUJ at the time. He told me that the NUJ needed the check-up dues paid by the Ministry of Information officials. So for him it was a a matter of cash. The truth however is that with the huge presence of these Ministry of Information officials in the NUJ, the Union cannot take a serious decision on issues of fundamental importance to journalism because they are government officials. That is a matter that the NUJ has not been able to resolve so far whether at the national level or in the states.
The other matter is that the NUJ sees itself and acts more as a trade union than as a professional body. It does very little training for its members and does very little in the promotion of professional and ethical issues. The recent review of the Ethics of the profession was handled largely by the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria (NPAN) and the Nigerian Guild of Editors. The NUJ made no contribution to the review. The NUJ must work more closely with the NPAN and NGE so as to benefit from the experience and network of the two major groups. That is the only way it can improve the lot of its members. Today, the arrival of the social media has impacted seriously and negatively on the practice of journalism. Falsehood is being published as truth in the social media. This turn of events in the new technology universe has adversely affected the fortunes of most media – and most journalists – today. A paradigm shift is needed urgently and the NUJ must be part of this media renaissance. This new era must include what to do for journalists in distress, what to do for journalists in retirement, what to do for journalists who cover dangerous assignments, what to do for journalists who face harassment for doing their jobs professionally and ethically, what to do to improve the financial life of media organisations.
The NUJ must move in a new direction so as to achieve enduring results for the benefit of its members in this new era.