… Otive says inequality, greatest developmental challenges facing Nigeria, World
… Don’t fight with Tinubu administration – Rahman to media
By Joy Odor
The Executive Director, International Press Center (IPC), Lanre Arogundade has advocated for Nigeria stakeholders in the media industry to push for constitutional protection for press freedom to avoid being engender spices to politicians and corrupt leaders like Ghana did.
Arogundade made the call at its unveiling of IOS/Web App Media Code of Elections and presentations of complied campaign promises of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu during the Stakeholders Aroundtable on Democratic Accountability in Abuja on Tuesday.
He reminded Nigeria elites that the media and civil society organizations have the oversight function constitutionally to monitoring governance and hold government accountable for the people and hoped that President Bola Tinubu administration will be friendly to the media.
Arogundade who informed that in Ghana, it is written in their constitution that government shall not do anything to tamper with press freedom or appoint editors from any government media also asked the Nigeria government to prioritise democratic accountability to prevent corruption and abuse of power.
IPC Executive Director who took a critical look to showcase the campaign promises of the Tinubu to the media, explained that IPC need to provide access tool and instrument for the citizens and the Media to unitized, and hold Tinubu government to its campaign promises such as: “To provide incentives for investments,
empower commodity boards, enhance our strategic grains reserves, encourage the formation of farm cooperatives, and expand the scope and depth of access to
finance for our farmers at the 7th edition of Kaduna Economic and Investment Summit (KadInvest October 2022;
“To immediately set up Commodity Exchange Commission (CEC) to boost the agricultural value chain of Nigeria not only for local food sufficiency but for export purposes at Forum with northern Agro-commodity group stakeholders, Idris Legbo Kutigi conference centre, Minna, November 2022; To turn the economy into a more active engine of growth, productivity, jobs and income. •To establish a broad-based economy that ensures broadly-shared prosperity for all at a Town Hall meeting in Lafia, November 2022 etc” he said.
Arogundade pointed out that the essence of the documentation is to facilitate robust discourse to engender democratic accountability in the context of citizens’ expectations while enhancing the role of the media in deepening democratic governance.
He opined that the expectation is that the documentation would help to advance the role of the media as the fourth estate of the realm with particular reference to Section 22 of the constitution which obligates the press to perform the
watchdog role of monitoring governance and holding the government accountable to the people.
“The documentation of the Presidential Campaign Promises is part of the programmatic media driven intervention of the IPC as lead implementing partners of the EU Support to Democratic Governance In Nigeria (EU-SDGN II) Project, specifically, component 4: Support to media.
“The goal is supporting the consolidation of democracy in Nigeria with the media (broadcast, print and online media) helping to facilitate the key ingredient of credible elections through engagement and professionalism in coverage and reportage of the electoral processes” Arogundade pointed.
In a lead paper presentation titled Beyond the Rhetoric of Campaigns: “The Role of Citizens and the Media in Ensuring Democratic Accountability, Otive Igbuzor, the Founder and Executive Director, African Center for Leadership, Strategy & Development (Center LSD) cassaved that one of the greatest developmental challenges facing the world today is inequality.
He mentioned that governance is more complex than making campaign promises as it places responsibility on the media to explain to the masses, saying the past five decades have witnessed monumental changes in the world as global economic wealth has increased sevenfold and average incomes have tripled, yet, poverty has increased to record high levels.
Otive noted that the major problem is that wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few people while majority of the people live in abject poverty.
The LSD Founder affirmed that poverty rate in Nigeria increased from 15 percent in 1960 to 28.1 percent in 1980 to 69.2 percent in 1997 to about 40 percent currently hosting the largest number of poor people in the world.
Otive said, by 2014, Nigeria ranked third in hosting the largest number of poor people in the world after India (first position) and China (second position) but by 2018, Nigeria was declared as the world poverty capital with around 87 million people living in extreme poverty compared with India’s 73 million according to the World Poverty Clock.
According to UNICEF, Otive said, Nigeria has 18.5 million out of school children, the highest in the world while the World’s Economist Intelligence Unit report which ranks the best and worst cities to live in the world indicated that Lagos in Nigeria is the third worst city to live in the World.
“The other cities are Damascus, Syria (1); Tripoli, Libya (2); Dhaka, Bangladesh (4); Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (5); Algiers, Algeria (6); Karachi, Pakistan (6); Harare, Zimbabwe (8) and Doula, Cameroun (9).
“The UNDP in itsû 1998 report documented that the three richest people in the world have assets that exceed the combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the 48 least developed countries. In 2014, 85 richest people in the world had the same wealth as the poorest 50 percent (3.5 billion people). By 2015, only 80 richest people have the same wealth as the poorest 50 percent.
“In any case, Nigeria as a country has been battered and urgently needs rebirth and building. Nigeria is ranked 163rd in the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI) out of 191 countries in 2021. Nigeria life expectancy is 52.7 years in 2021 (compare with 64.38 years in South Africa, 72.22 years in Egypt and 87.57 years in Japan).
“The population of Nigeria in 2018 was estimated to be about 195.9 million which is about 15 percent of the population of India (1.353 billion) and 14 percent of China (1.393 billion), yet it hosts the largest number of poor people in the world”.
He informed that the change was partly as a result of social protection policies implemented by China and India combined with enlightened leadership and pressure from below, saying according to the McKinsey Global Report, 2018, China lifted 713 million people and India 170 million people out of poverty between 1990 and 2013, they achieved this feat through inclusive, pro- poor growth; fiscal policies for wealth redistribution; employment generation; public service provision and social protection.
Otive said all of these underscores the importance of leadership in nation building and national rebirth and to ensure democratic accountability, it is imperative for the citizens and the media to hold government to account for its campaign promises through monitoring the Parliamentary Oversights in budget implementation through project visits to assess budget release, compliance with procurement procedures and assessment of work done.
In his address, the Media Aide to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Tunde Rahman, represented by Ayo Oyalowo appealed to the media not to fight with Tinubu administration rather be partners in progress.
He assured that the present administration is poised to fully implement its campaign promises in all sectors without fear or favour.
According to him, Tinubu administration will improve on all the good policies of the previous administration hence it is aimed at making Nigeria more of an exporting nation than an importing one.
Also in his remark, the Executive Director, Institute of Media and Society (IMS), Akin Akingbulu enjoined the citizens and the Media to use IPC launched online Web App of Media Code of Elections to effectively monitoring and evaluate campaign promises of the present administration.
According to him, the presentations of campaign promises of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and launch of IOS/Web App of Media Code of Elections is right activity at a right time and enjoined the media and the citizens to track promises step by step.
