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JOE EFFIONG & MERCY ETISONG, UYO
The recent arrest of vote traders during the last general election in Osun state has been described as a good anti-corruption gesture by the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC).
However, Auwal Musa, the executive director of the Centre, has said the action should not stop at just arrests, rather the culprits, especially the sponsors and ‘big fishes’ in the vote trading business should be prosecuted.
Making an opening remark at a one-day training for journalist on “Prioritizing Anti-corruption and Accountability Issues During the Upcoming 2023 Elections in Nigeria” held in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Musa stressed that Nigerians need to see prosecutions and conviction of those offenders as well as the politicians sending those individuals on those errands.
“The funds use to buy votes are moved through our financial institutions, and it is important for the anti-graft agencies to target the “big fishes” also.
“Considering the growing focus of anti-corruption at the federal level, CISLAC currently advocates for the need to have anti-corruption initiatives and entities at the sub-national levels and this project which is implemented with support from the MacArthur Foundation advocates for that.
“The project plans to advocate for: Improved capacity of the media to investigate the presence of dirty money in Nigeria’s political processes and finally, increase citizens demand for accountability in the funding of political processes, educating voters on how to exercise their democratic rights, Scrutinizing the electoral process itself, including electoral management, to evaluate the fairness of the process, its efficiency, and its probity.
“It is the duty of the media to act as the watchdog of the society, with the primary responsibility of protecting public interest against any abuse by those entrusted with power and resources of the state, the media are essential for ensuring transparency, accountability and participation as fundamental elements of good governance and human rights-based development. The media are not only the cornerstone of democracy, but they also play an indispensable role in the proper functioning of a democracy. ”
Saviour Akpan, executive director of Compart Foundation, which partnered CISLAC to organise the training, challenged journalists to begin to ask questions about how developments are carried out in the society by the government.
Akpan reasoned that if the press allows things to be done as they have always been, then Nigerians should not expect a different result in governance than what they always had in the past.
“The journalists should be able to have an unbiased reportage so that when it hits the streets, people would know that this is the truth.
” Again, the practices of political journalism had been based on the principles of ‘na my person dey there’. This training will help the journalist to educate the people and it would reduce the incidence of vote buying because the people would be sensitized to take their suffering more seriously.
” One particular thing that his will help in 2023 election is that it will reduce the opacity around political parties financing.” Akpan said.
Delivering a lecture on ” Investigative Reporting and Story Building Techniques, , Taiwo Hassan, Head, Investigation and Data of Premium Times, explained that investigative journalism is essentially digging to uncover wrongdoing, including regulatory failure, right abuses, corruption, breach of law or illicit business.
“It is holding the powerful accountable, giving the public information needed to ask questions; offering, offering leads to law enforcement to cause investigation/prosecution.” Hde said.
Dr Bridget Anochie, who spoke on “How to effectively navigate challenges faced by journalist in Nigeria, said the journalist owes the public the obligations of disseminating information, creating awareness and educating the masses as well as setting agenda to navigate the leaders and the led to the part of good governance.
She lamented that; “Most media ;proprietors do not consider the imperative of training and retraining.”
“In fact,it has become almost the sole responsibility off the CSOs to train journalist in Nigeria. But the truth is that if the knowledge base of a journalist is ;low, the output will be very minimal.. To report corrupt practices, illegal financial flow or election offences, there is need for the journalists to have ample knowledge of the public office holders in order to report accurately.” ENDS
