As people of Ondo State prepare for the forthcoming November 16th off-circle gubernatorial election in the state, journalists have been called upon to always set an agenda that would make politicians accountable to the citizens in the state.
This advice was given at the two-day seminar with the theme; ‘Media dialogue and stakeholders interface on credible Ondo governorship election,’ organised for over 40 journalists in the state by the International Press Centre (IPC) and the Centre For Media and Society (CEMESO) held in Akure.
Lanre Arogundade, executive director of IPC, emphasised that the media was a critical stakeholder in the upcoming election in the state.
According to him, it was important that the media also perform its job of covering the governorship election while the electoral umpire is making efforts to ensure a credible exercise.
Arogundade said: “Our major objective is to sensitise the critical stakeholders about their roles and responsibilities in the electoral process. We believe we should hear from them about their state of preparation and ask questions.
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“We should also extract commitment from them on what they will do to make sure the electoral process is also credible and you know that can only be possible if INEC does its job very well, the police and other security agencies provide adequate security.”
Melody Akinjiyan, the IPC programme officer, said: “This workshop is one of the activities being implemented by IPC, as the lead partner, and the Centre for Media and Society (CEMESO) under Component 4: Support to Media of the European Union Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria (EU-SDGNII) project.”
While Tunde Fajimbola, a senior lecturer at the Department of International Relations, Elizade University, Ilara-Mokin, in his presentation; ‘The People in Ondo Governorship Election: What issues and what agenda for the media,’ said that journalists have a critical role to play in the upcoming off-cycle governorship election exercise of the state.
According to him, the media must begin to question how the candidates participating in the election hope to tackle various issues affecting the people.
He observed that there are questions bordering on developmental issues in the state, noting that journalists have to set an agenda for discourse ahead of the governorship election.
“As journalists, you should discuss the real issues to the people and set the agenda for discourse now that we are preparing for the election. If the media is not setting the agenda, politicians would be diverting our attention from the real issues.
“The media should be talking about the governorship candidates who are seeking to govern. We should begin to set an agenda for these politicians and also measure their performance,” Fajimbola said.
Akin Akingbulu, executive director, Centre for Media and Society (CEMESO) and Taiwo Obe, founder of the Journalism Clinic, in their respective remarks, encouraged the media practitioners to perform their duties to the expectations.
Oluwatoyin Babalola, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the state, who also spoke on the level of their preparedness for the election to ensure a seamless electoral process, said a total of 2,053,061 registered voters had been recorded so far ahead of the poll.
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According to her, the Commission had embarked on massive voter education across the state, educating and engaging citizens on their rights and responsibilities as voters.
The REC said: “For the media to be able to effectively carry out its role as regards the forthcoming governorship election in the state, you need to know the process, and when you know the process, pre-election and post-election activities you will be able to do a good coverage and assessment of what is commission is doing.
“We have been having serious engagement, right now, we are having massive voters education, we are on radio stations, TV stations and others. Few days ago, we have an engagement with young female voters so that they will be able to talk to the voters of their age for them to know their right, why should they vote, how do they vote, when do they vote among others.
“Also, we have engaged persons living with disabilities, on how they can vote, and educate members of their association. We have had an engagement with all security agencies for them to be aware of all the arrangement towards the election.
“We have engaged NURTW members, Marine Times workers union for them to know their responsibilities, we have also had training on election risk management, so that our staff can identify risk because we want this election to be an all-inclusive election.
“We don’t want to be under any pressure for this election. We have also had a training on the effective fire and safety management for our staff to know what to do when there is fire outbreak. We are trying to make our environment to be conducive for all our staff.
“Before the Continuous Voters Registration exercise, we had three hundred and two thousand and forty-three uncollected PVCs, during the CVR, three thousand four hundred and seventy-one persons collected. Now we have 298,572 uncollected and for the new PVCs, we are having 58,708. For the total registered voters in the state, we have two-million fifty-three thousand and sixty-one (2,053,061) registered voters.”
