Voting without Voter`s Card
The press credibility is underpinned by the assumptions that stories published and broadcast by the mass media are the truth and meant to serve the public interest. That the members of the Fourth Estate of Realm are regulated by ethical and professional rules of engagement and not by any selfish or parochial persuasions. Journalists the world over are supposed to be men and women of high ethical standards. But this assumption is being strained by the conduct of some journalists in Delta State. I am talking about the June 1st, 2017 elections into the state council of Nigerian Union of Journalists held at the Labour House, Asaba.
Before the said election, the state governor, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa during a media parley within the same week to mark his second year in office made fun of journalists and their inability to conduct election. Before the press briefing, an official of the NUJ introduced the caretaker chairman of NUJ and the governor was taken aback. He said that he thought that only political parties have caretaker committee and that it never crossed his mind that the members of the noble profession could not conduct election. He ended on note of joke that conducting election was not an essay affair.
The second election was conducted in the Labour House, another stinging reminder that the members of the press do not have their own secretariat despite the millions of Naira given to the NUJ council by the state government. The first election failed because there were discordant tones on the mode of election. Some chapels were rooting for their own list but investigation carried out by this reporter was that such list was padded by the inclusion of non-journalists. There was a motion that the compendium should be used as the voters register but those not so favoured moved against it and so the election was postponed. However, on the second trial of the election, the members came to agreement that the compendium should be used. And so, the election was held but not without hitches.
A new vocabulary was added to the holding of elections by journalists in Delta State. That election could be held without voters’ cards. One journalist suggested that since the compendium was the voters register, there was the need for members to identify themselves either by their professional ID Card, driver’s license or the national identity card. It was then hell was let loose and supposedly educated journalists came out with outlandish and bizarre idea. That journalists could vote without their identity cards as long as the chapel chairman identifies them. This was the beginning of rigging of the election because some of the chapel chairmen had ideas of importing non-journalists (which of course they did) into the voting arena. The situation became so chaotic that Edward Ogude, an NUJ national officer and a staff of the Delta Broadcasting Service, Asaba had to intervene. By that intervention, the election was held but many interlopers, charlatans and non-journalists with active collaboration with chapel chairmen voted. It was a sad day for journalists and the journalism profession.
That journalists who are supposed to be the conscience of the society sold their souls to the devil because of some pecuniary interest. It staggers the imagination for some crop of journalists to maintain that identity card or voter card was not needed in the conduct of election. This is one area that the chairman of INEC should come and take tutorials from journalists and should that happen, journalists especially those of us in Delta State do not have the moral fibre to criticise INEC. If journalists cannot observe the minimum standard in the conduct of elections, then we cannot tell the public the truth about happenings around them. People may regard us as prostitutes preaching chastity. Journalists in Delta State because of some greedy few are standing in the credibility gap in the court of public opinion.
Furthermore, the NUJ election exposed the cold war between the Commissioner for Information and the chief press secretary to the governor. The Information Commissioner was rooting for Mike Ikeogwu while the chief press secretary supported Fidelis Eguigbo. My investigation revealed that before the election, the Information Commissioner held a meeting with all the information officers in the state and specific instructions were given to them on whom to support. And since the Information chapel has the largest members, they decided the fate of the polls and Mike Ikeogwu of the Warri correspondent chapel won the race. The beauty of the election, however, was that it was The Pointer newspaper contesting against The Pointer newspaper. Both Ikeogwu and Eguigbo work for the state owned newspaper – The Pointer. While Ikeogwu is a correspondent based in Warri, Eguigbo is the Government House correspondent in Asaba.
The losers in this unique but dubious election without voters’ cards are the journalists and the image the public have of us. Those who preach ethics should also be guided by such ethical standards and it is really unfortunate that journalists do not practise what they preach. The polls had produced one unfortunate scenario that in Delta State, the governor, the chief press secretary and that state chairman of NUJ are from one local government area (Ika North East LGA) and its says volumes of the Pan Delta agenda of the Okowa administration.
Julius Oweh, a journalist, Asaba, Delta State. 08037768392