The indiscriminate hosting of awards to public office holders, businessmen, traditional rulers and private and public institutions has long been a fad in Nigerian journalism and media industry. Media organisations and journalist groups confer honours of all sorts on the same persons they ought to monitor and hold accountable on behalf of Nigerians.
On November 22, 2021, a new dimension of this unfortunate fad was demonstrated when the House of Representatives Press Corps took out a full-page coloured advert to congratulate the House Committee Chairman on Appropriations, Muktar Betara, on his 55th birthday. They extolled him as a “leader per excellence” who has displayed “competence and capacity” in the discharge of his duties.
Maybe, this is why Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, recently raised issues with the Nigerian media, accusing it of undermining its ability to hold power accountable by unethically associating with politicians.
The spate of these awards is worrisome as the media censors itself and abandons its watchdog role whenever it indiscriminately honours the same public officials and institutions it is supposed to hold accountable. Such awards include Governor or Governors of the Year; Minister or Ministers of the Year; Politician or Politicians of the Year, Bank or Banker of the Year, among others.
Many of these awards are a mockery of the same achievements they sought to highlight, since Nigerians hardly see or feel them. The awardees, in turn, crave such honours and use them to maximum advantage for propaganda purposes. This way, rather than the recognition of a person’s achievement in office, the award becomes the achievement itself.
It is alright if the awards are given for altruistic reasons. Recognising the genuine performance of politicians in office is not a bad thing in itself, especially where it is done in the public interest and the motive is to encourage others to do more. But no! Each awardee, in this case, supports the awarding organization with either monetary contribution, partnership or advertisements by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), just to celebrate the awards, or indeed, to make the award possible in the first place.
Sometimes, the sponsors and beneficiaries of such awards are officials of state governments owing arrears of salaries and pensions, or in states with wobbling infrastructure and mounting youth unemployment. The awardees then turn the award ceremonies into a carnival to score political points. This calls into question the credibility of the media organisation giving out the award, especially when, as has happened severally, past recipients end up disgraced with allegations or indictment for corruption. Some of the banks and top bankers bestowed with these awards have ended up being forced to merge or shut down business due to gross mismanagement or sheer incompetence.
Moreover, these awards run against the historical and constitutional role of the Nigerian media. Section 22 of the Constitution states that it is the job of the media to monitor governance and hold public officers to account. We, therefore, urge the media to retrace its steps and take a cue from awards by foreign media. Such awards, anchored on excellent journalism, is led by the much yearly anticipated TIME magazine’s Person of the Year, which profiles a person, group, institution, idea or object that “for better or for worse” has done most to influence events in a particular year. It does not celebrate any public official just for executing projects, which in the first instance, was why such a person was elected or appointed into public office.
The leadership of the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), Nigerian Guild of Editors, Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), the beat associations and online groups should sit up. We cannot continue media practice in Nigeria this way without destroying the gains of the past. It is time media organisations looked for alternative sources of capitalizing and recapitalizing their business outside hosting award events. And if awards must be given at all, the criteria need to be objective and made public, and not only to public officials or businessmen, but they should include awards to ordinary Nigerians, who may have one way or another influenced the course of events in the country.
Nigeria is at crossroads. This is the time for the media, as the Fourth Estate of the realm, to take its role seriously and chart a healthy path to national renaissance. We cannot do this when we are always going cap in hand to the same people we ought to be nudging in the right direction. These awards turn the media into lapdogs of public officers, private and public institutions, and stifle their ability to monitor governance. Journalism is as good as its credibility. The awards should stop forthwith.
Daily Trust Editorial of December 6, 2021