Aluta with sense and maturity

Young journalists… Aluta continua, Victoria acerta

By Samson FolarinPublished 13/05/2010Campus
Time and time again, we have witnessed bizarre carnages in our noble profession. Men of the underworld have continued to hound and hunt journalists with the intent of dousing their zeal, muzzling their acerbic pen, damping their morals and making future genii of the profession tremulous and dispirited. As the hope of this profession, we are tempted to rethink our commitment. We are confronted with the arduous challenge of convincing apprehensive parents and loved ones about our intention to make the difference in our world through the aperture journalism offers. And truly, their concern appears reasonable.

First, the state of security in the country is worrisome. The government seems not to care for our protection while discharging our duties. They are also not ready to facilitate our national and constitutionally assigned duty by deliberately frustrating the FOI bill. I can only imagine some of those feckless juggernauts sneering and savouring the wanton death of journalists and perhaps saying: "good for them" although they may be publicly shedding crocodile tears and hauling shallow tantrums at killers of journalists.

The media organisations obviously are not helping matters. Journalists are only paid stipends. It is unimaginable to see journalists drive luxurious cars. While people in other professions revel in millions, journalists languish in abject poverty. No insurance for the journalist, because his employers don’t value his life. If he dies, the work continues. His death will only cost a page of "Life and times of…"; a few days of tributes and commendations for a life well spent. What about his family members? What about his helpless children? A heavy hush envelopes the rest of the story.

What about the society? The society does not offer any form of consolation. The people, for whom the journalist risks his life to obtain stories to prosecute public officers and drag them to the court of human and judicial justice, do not value the effort. To start with, very few journalists have their pictures in the papers to gain any celebrity status. They are not welcome wherever they go. Ours is a society where we don’t appreciate the truth. The innocent journalist is suspected at every occasion. They treat him like the plague.

So tell me why should I be a journalist? Why shouldn’t I listen to my people? Why should I risk my neck for an ungrateful society, pernicious and hell-bent public officers who will go out of their way to eliminate me for practicing my profession truthfully? Why should I put my life on the line for an unrewarding profession that requires a dose of rascality? Why not become an accountant working in an air-conditioned office with secretaries at my beck and call?

It must be stated that journalism is a profession of the heart. It is a call to duty. It offers the platform to confront the powerful in the society. While the accountant, engineer, architect fizzle out and is forgotten after making his money, the journalist’s name is etched in gold for his invaluable contribution to humanity. It is a risky and life threatening discipline, but it is an avenue for the activist and radical leftist to fight with his last blood.

Comrades, to the question of whether we will relent after these unfathomable serial killings of journalists, I dare to say the fight has only begun. The holy writ confounds us with a paradox that the more the Egyptian burdened and afflicted the Israelites, the more they appeared stronger with bulging and intimidating biceps. After the murder of our courageous heroes, we will continue to multiply and proliferate like sands on the seashore. More than ever before, our pen will lacerate callous politicians and deceitful public officers who have defaulted on their constitutional pledge. The blood of the journalist is seed.

Yes, they may murder Dele Giwa, mow Bayo Ohu, Tayo Awotusi, Edo Ugbagwu, but they cannot kill the truth. Truth will ever prevail. We are only the conveyor belt of truth, equity and justice. Death has got no power over truth.

In this struggle to wrest our beloved country from the hands of greedy and glorified hoodlums in suit, my advice to young journalists and distressed reporters goes in the words of the ancient Greek historian and author, Thucydides who said: "The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it." To chicken out of the fight in a bid to save our lives will tantamount to cowardice.

The dead journalists have made their own mark. Their names have continued to re-echo their exploits, courage, character and charisma. Journalism may offer no pleasure but pain; it may promise no accolade but accusation; it may give no cheers but jeers. Yes, we may get no national honour and award, but it gives one thing: the satisfaction of making the comfortable uncomfortable and the sorrowful joyful.


Samson, 400-L Mass Comm., UNILAG