The leadership of the Senate has advised the media against sensational and misleading report, which it noted is affecting the image of the country.
The Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, gave the advice on Saturday in Lokoja, the Kogi State’s capital, at the 2020 Retreat of the Senate Press Corps.
in a paper entitled, “Governance :How Watchful are the Watchdogs in Ensuring Accountability and Transparency,” he said practitioners must uphold professionalism and objectivity at all times in order to hold government accountable.
“The Ship of Journalism is sinking and it is sinking very fast and something drastic has to be done before it total capsizes ” he said .
Lawan was represented at the event by the Chairman , Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs , Senator Ajibola Basiru.
Sensationalism he explained, should not be equated with serving as a watchdog because, “it not only erodes the credibility of the media, it also over the times, create doubts about the quest of the media for accountability and responsibility of the government.
“It is therefore imperative for the press to rededicate itself to proper investigative journalism with necessary thoroughness that focused of substance of findings in relation to inefficiency, waste, corruption, mismanagement and/ or misappropriation being exposed.”
According to him, if the media ,as the watchdog performed its role as enshrined in section 22 of the 1999 Constitution, the country would have surmounted the menace of institutionalized corruption to a very reasonable extent.
Declaring the event open, the Kogi Governor, Yahaya Bello, who was represented by his Deputy, David Onoja, said that before the emergence of the present administration in the state in 2016, “Kogi was noted as the kidnap capital of Nigeria.
“Our highways were littered with virtually weekly occurrences of armed robbery, especially night travelers in luxurious buses.
“It’s four years nine months later, though we have not been able to eradicate the kidnappings totally, the numbers have drastically reduced to the barest minimum.
“And highway robberies, bank robberies are becoming things that are in our history books rather than what we experience
“We are doing our best in fighting insecurity in Kogi and ensuring that life and property are secured,’’ he said.
