Interstate Journalists For Democracy and Development, (IJDD), a cross border press association has held its 2026 lecture series in Owerri, Imo state.
Delivering this year’s lecture penultimate week in Owerri, entitled “The Place of Journalism In Nigeria And The Imperative For A New Journalism Agenda ,” the lecturer, Comrade Emmanuel Chukwu tasked Nigerian journalists to embrace a new Journalistm agenda, which will focus on industrial development, skill acquisition and ideological sensitization of citizens for mass participation in governance.
The paper emphasized the need to sensitize political leaders to appreciate the importance of encouraging industrial activities by creative citizens for true development of Nigeria, explaining that colonial masters deliberately discouraged domestic industrial activities in order to boost production of goods in their home country for export to Nigeria.
The journalist/ author charged electronic media organizations in the South South, Lagos and Abuja to cut their entertainment programmes by thirty percent to accommodate skill acquisition enlightenment programmes for youths as he praised some electronic media organizations in Imo state for their youth skill acquisition enlightenment programmes.
Comrade Chukwu regretted that modern day Nigerian journalists have failed to understand the need to advocate for industrial activities by Nigerians since a nation’s development is measured by the production of materials for both export and consumption.
The lecturer berated both political leaders and journalists for mistaking the term ‘local product’ to mean inferiority as every foreign product’ is a local product in the country it was producted.
He explained that there are local products that have high quality than foreign products and urged Nigerian journalists to take the agenda setting lead in reorienting political leaders on the imperative of patronizing local products and their producers for true national development.
While the lecturer regretted the economic suffering facing journalists in Nigeria, especially those in the private media, he advised journalists to stop running around politicians and focus on other sectors of the economy, especially the rural people, artisans and the vulnerable groups to find out their problems and alert government to address such problems as each citizen has legal economic access to the joint patrimony for prosperity and national development.
According to the lecturer , journalists in the private media should consider other business backup plans to improve their financial status as solely practising journalism in the 21st century without commensurate financial rewards would encourage extortionist journalism which undermines the credibility of the profession.
Comrade Chukwu recommended that the Federal government should set aside 100billion naira for a complimentary entrepreneurial fund for private media practitioners with entrepreneurial vision.
He advised journalists to broaden their knowledge through independent studies and research for the right knowledge for quality journalism practice.
He wondered how a journalist that does not read and research wide would live up to the billing of a modern journalist as a true journalist is an embodiment of knowledge, ‘a thinker,a scholar and public educator par excellence.”
The lecturer attributed the cat and rat relationship between the political class and journalists to lack of balance of knowledge between the two groups, adding that a balance in Political and constitutional knowledge would make each to see the other as Patriots in the same boat of national development.
Also, the lecturer recommended for the establishment of Nigerian Journalism Academy for fresh graduates of Journalistm and Mass communication to equip them with the right ideological and ethical bearings for productive and result oriented journalism.
The Nigerian Journalism Academy, according to him should offer a six months programme after which it would licence qualified journalists to practise journalism in Nigeria as the profession should not be an all comers profession.
