Professor of Oral Literature, Folklore and Cultural Science, and the Delta State Chairman of PAN Niger Delta Forum, (PANDEF), Godini Darah has advocated the place of a vibrant media in the enthronement of good governance.
Darah spoke during a Niger Delta town hall meeting in Warri, Delta State organised by National Point/Foreward Communications Limited in conjunction with the MacArthur Foundation supported by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism with the theme:” Ensuring Electoral Accountability and Inclusive Governance” for selected media organisations in the Niger Delta region.
According to him, where there is no independent and vibrant media that can hold those in leadership position accountable there can not be good governance. He therefore called on the people of the Niger Delta region to develop an effective media that can hold those in power into account
He decried the situation whereby most of the front-line media organisations are owned by Niger Deltans yet the issues pertaining the region are always portrayed in bad light, and urged the people to recover their media power as it is the only way development can take place.
The Delta State Chairman of PANDEF advised media practitioners in attendance to take it as responsibility to consciously and deliberately reconstruct the image of the region in order to refocus the mindset of those in leadership to think about policies that can transform and uplift the people of the region to be reckon with in terms of development.
Stating that for development to be achieved the media must be central in view of the critical role its plays in enhancing accountability and democratic governance.
\”I think where we are now is that we must reconstruct our own approach on how to safeguard Niger Delta and make it to be free from the yoke of exploitation and oppression. So in this regard, we offer that the organisers of this event collaborate with PANDEF, by the way I am the Chairman of PANDEF in Delta State, to organise more events of this nature because we require political enlightenment. Look at the issues thrown up on women participation in politics. They were giving an example of Lagos State where some time now the deputy governors have been women and they have been given prominent roles to play in governance because the media is part of governance in Lagos.\”
\”A place you do not have effective and independent and a vibrant media you ca not have good governance. If there is no media that is effective that can challenges those in power and ask them to be accountable, they will do whatever they like. Take the Niger Delta as a geo-political zone, we now have the duty to develop an effective and vibrant media that can hold those in power to account. And it is an irony, that when you talk of major media organisations in Nigeria, they are owned by Niger Delta people go to the print media- This Day, Guardian, Independent, Vanguard etc, when we go to the electronic- Channels, Arise, AIT, Ray power etc if you remove these stations there is no media in Nigeria anymore.\”
\”So how come that we are the proprietors of the most powerful media organisations in Nigeria yet our image in Nigeria is always negative. It is only when there is a riot or a pipeline is blown that is the only time we feature in the news. So we also have to recover our media power that is one of the issues, it may take us ten years to do so but we must cultivate the media power that focuses interest on Niger Delta saying without Niger Delta there is no Nigeria that was the advocacy we took twenty years during the resource control advocacy.\”
\”So there is job to be done here, we have not done it but we have to do it. So let this meeting make an attempt to say from now on let us make it a point of duty to reconstruct the image of our region towards development oriented issues. We must now prepare to increase this task with appropriate consciousness and bravery to begin the liberation of the Niger Delta and the media would be central to it and consciousness is very important and if we don’t have we can’t achieve development”, he stated.
Also speaking, one time Deputy Vice Chancellor, Administration of Delta State University, Prof. Rose Aziza called for women to be given equal opportunity with the menfolk in the political space, stating that women have a lot to offer in the democratic process.
Aziza advised the women willing to go into politics to rally round each other rather than antagonizing one another, insisting that women who have held political positions have done well.
She decried the monetisation of the Nigerian political system where women and Youth are shut out of the system, stating that money politics should be steadily discouraged in Nigeria. She asked “Where can you get a youth who is ready to pay 100 million naira for expression of interest, you have not talked about how much he is going to use to mobilise people and do the campaign.
Ibiba DonPedro and Constance Meju the organisers of the town hall meeting in their separate remarks noted that the meeting became imperative to address the neglect and the underdevelopment the people of Niger Delta are going through amidst abundant resources and possibly chart a way forward to reverse the issues of non accountability in governance that tends to hinder development.
