The Nation Newspaper

Category: Lekan Otufodunrin

  • A thought for unpaid workers

    A thought for unpaid workers

    Staff of a national newspaper, (name withheld) started getting bank alert for the payment of their “13th month” salary for 2017 on Wednesday evening.

    Yes, 13th month. They collected their well-deserved and hard-earned December salary before Christmas as it should be in any good company that cares about the welfare of its staff.

    The payment which is 100 % of their monthly basic salary is in appreciation of the hard work of the staff which has made the publication a leading one in the country.

    As I think about the payment, it occurred to me how lucky the staff of the newspaper are to work in one of the few media houses that regularly pay staff salaries.

    For a moment, I remembered that many other journalists are being owed months of unpaid salaries. Some have lost their jobs and are not likely to get another one soon with the depression in the industry.

    Even with regular pay, it is still hard for many to meet their obligations, so my worry is how unpaid journalists are coping with the harsh economic situation in the country?

    They have families and also have numerous bills to pay. More importantly, how are they supposed to do their jobs diligently and ethically when they are not sure when they will be paid.

    “My children are not in school because I don’t have money to pay. To feed is tough. Please help me get any job I can do,” a staff of defunct newspaper pleaded with me recently.

    My heart goes out to unpaid journalists and really hope there will be end to their predicaments somehow.

    Those who get paid can try to assist those not paid, but how much can they do when they also have many obligations to meet with their generally low pay?

    Notwithstanding, unpaid journalists deserve every support they can get.

    We need to support them financially and with other suggestions to earn whatever income they can get.

    They need ideas about how to own platforms and offer services to earn decent pay.

    Reach out to them today. Call, visit and send text messages for them to know you care about them and willing to help in anyway you can.

    Journalists are not the only set of workers being owed by employers. No sector, including the government is spared this unfortunate development. It used to be that civil servants and other workers of other government agencies are not owed salaries, but that is no longer the case.

    At all levels, federal, state and local government, workers are owed salaries and allowances for unbelievable number of months. In some cases, there is no agreement on how much is being owed because of the inconsistency in payment.

    Every worker deserves his or her wages but it is sad that non-payment has become the norm, rather than the exception. Workers who are not paid cannot definitely put in their best at work as they may find it difficult to get their mind off how to survive and meet several obligations.

    As I urge workers not caught in the web of non-payment of salaries to support those affected, my plead is that employers should regard payment of their staff as a priority. It is a right, not a privildege.

     

  • The rot in our schools

    The rot in our schools

    In the half of first term of the season and by the grace of God we have accomplished our set goals so far.
    But I must say that the challenge is enormous. In particular, what is obvious to all of us is the issue of overstretched facilities in every component of the system

    The above quotation is by a principal in a newsletter of a top federal government secondary school most parents dream their children attend.

    Being a civil servant who cannot afford to be seen to indict the government, the principal in the few words above tried her best to draw attention to challenge she is having to cope with given the limited resources at her disposal.

    If she could admit that the challenge she is facing is enormous, despite the very top position her school occupies among other federal colleges, the challenges her colleagues have are better imagined.

    I am not sure what the set goals she claimed to have accomplished are, but they definitely cannot include providing the students a conducive learning environment. It cannot include having all the necessary learning instructions they need.

    With overstretched facilities and personnel, the college like many others cannot definitely claim to be living up to the expectation of providing the students the kind of education they really need and what their parents are paying for under various guises.

    If I had my way, I would not have sent my child to this school despite the high reputation it still has, but I had to yield to pressure from my wife who believed the lie that the school is better than the ones in our neigbourhood in the ‘outland’ of Lagos.

    It didn’t take up to a term in the school for my wife to see through the deceit of its living on past glory, no thanks to the government that has failed woefully to meet its obligations of providing necessary facilities and personnel.

    Most of the facilities in the school are run down and insufficient for the large number of students admitted. Many of the beds in the hostels and desks in the classrooms are broken and the students just have to manage with what they can get.

    As if that is not enough, there are not enough teachers to teach some classes and in some instances, the Parent Teachers Associations (PTA) have to assist the school in paying part-time teachers to take some key subjects.

    How can students do well in the West African School Certificate Examination when they don’t have teachers to teach them some subjects? Or the some of the teachers are not putting in their best to impact necessary knowledge?

    In some states where the governments claim to be providing free education, only few books and facilities are provided. So bad is the situation that students in some senior classes can barely write some simple English words.

    It is high time that the government at all levels gave education the priority it deserves. We cannot continue to pay lip service to educating our youths who are supposed to be leaders of tomorrow by underfunding the sector that is crucial to our development.

  • What’s age, experience got to do with it

    What’s age, experience got to do with it

    Twice in this column, I have had cause to write about an outstanding female journalist of note, Oluwatoyosi Ogunseye, the immediate past Sunday Editor of The Punch. It is not common that journalists write about themselves. We write about others who excel in various fields of endeavours, but, understandably, we can be too modest about celebrating our accomplishments.

    Deliberately and perhaps because of my commitment to media career development, I don’t hesitate to write about journalists whose story can inspire readers. Once in a while, I have no problem with news writers becoming newsmakers as it is with my fascination about the young lady who I knew as a student less than fifteen years ago, but has broken almost all major records in the media industry in Nigeria and even at the global level.

    Ogunseye, the first female editor in The Punch who was recently employed by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) as the Head of Languages stations in West Africa, is a role model I will always recommend , not only in the media, but for every professional who wants to maximise the potential in their profession.

    Ogunseye’s meteoric rise despite the various challenges associated with the profession is a clear proof that success is not about how far but how well. For a lady in a gentlemen’s profession, who did not read any Mass Communication-related course, started out reporting crime and not any major beat, her story is very inspiring with lots of lessons to learn about the reward for hard work, tenacity of purpose and commitment to professionalism.

    The headline of one of the two columns I had written about Ogunseye was ‘Success is Predictable’. When you find a person who has a clear sense of purpose like I sensed in her the day she submitted her application to participate in the first Nigeria Young Journalists Award in 2014 despite being a student freelance reporter for The Sun newspaper and a passion for quality reporting, chances of towering above her peers and seniors are very high as it has turned out to be for Ogunseye.

    Is she just lucky like some claim? There is definitely much more than luck to the phenomenal accomplishments of Ogunseye whose work and performance have been subjected not only to local, but international, assessments. Luck without brilliance and hard work cannot take anyone too far. If it does, it usually becomes apparent with the person’s inability to live up to expectations.

    A young graduate told me how he recently found himself at a training programme with some experienced journalists who had many discouraging stories to tell him about their media career, my advice for him was that Ogunseye and a number of other young outstanding journalists I know have proved that a profession is as good as what you make out of it.

    If Ogunseye and others have believed the ‘veteran tales’ they must have heard in their early days in the profession, they would have been discouraged from succeeding where many before them have failed.

    Journalism, like many other professions perceived as not fulfilling and rewarding, needs more Ogunseyes to prove that age and years of experience have nothing to do with being a success in whatever endeavour.

    Congratulations Toyosi, keep soaring.

     

  • The case for female journalists

    In the last three months, I have had the privilege of mentoring fifteen amazing female journalists under the Female Reporters Leadership Programme of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism.

    The programme which is supported by the Free Press Unlimited based in Netherlands is meant to position female reporters for leadership in the newsroom and was formally rounded up last Friday in Lagos at an award/appreciation event.

    Like in every area of human endeavours, women are disadvantaged in the media either in terms of being underreported or not having equal opportunities with their male counterparts on the job.

    A pre- project survey conducted by the centre confirmed that except in few cases, women do not occupy major leadership positions in media organisations. Most newspaper houses in the country either do not have women in management positions or the editorial board.

    Due to their absence in major decision-making levels, gender issues are not mainstreamed, thus making it impossible for the media to reflect the true picture of how reported issues affect women. Even the women journalists have become accustomed to the male-centred reporting that they are not conscious of the need to subject their reporting to gender analysis.

    Based on the leadership projects implemented and the stories they published and broadcast which was the basis for completing the fellowship, the fellows proved that they were ready to take up the challenge of redressing the negative narrative of women in leadership positions in newsroom if given the necessary atmosphere to maximise their potential.

    Virtually all the fellows organised leadership and editorial trainings for other female colleagues and interns in their media houses. Many female journalists and interns who had hitherto not had the opportunity of participating in structured empowerment sessions learnt a lot based on the feedbacks and wanted more of such sessions to enhance their skills.

    Considering that most media houses do not have budgets for continuous trainings on the job, the fellows have shown that they and other female colleagues like their male counterparts have the capacity to provide necessary leadership skills that can enhance the staff productivity.

    Instead of allowing most interns from higher institutions to idle away like they do in most media houses, the experiment by the fellows should provide a template to grooming students and young journalists who need deliberate, planned and sustained mentoring for them to understand what the profession is all about and what they need to do to excel.

    During the various training sessions, the issue of sexual discrimination and harassments in newsroom kept recurring and various suggestions were made on the need to address them.

    As much as female journalists were implored to hone their skills to take on any role in their organisations and not give unnecessary gender excuse, the need for media managers not to stereotype women was made. Female journalists should be given equal chances to prove their mettle instead of being disqualified from consideration for some positions based on their gender. As the Coordinator of the Wole Soyinka Centre, Motunrayo Alaka, rightly stated, “what we are asking for is not a takeover, but equal space for female journalists to operate.”

  • Thought for food

    To round up this year, I started writing a series on end of the year motivation on facebook since Wednesday. I was motivated to do so as my little contribution to ensuring that as many Nigerians as possible maximise their potential for the overall development of the country.

    Two of the series are reproduced below.

     

    What did you achieve in 2017?

    One of the secrets of success is being able to ask yourself tough questions and answering them honestly.

    While reviewing a passing year, everyone needs to find time for a honest self-assessment of how well he or she made good use of the 365 days of 2017.

    This task will not be difficult if you had goals you set for yourself and know where you should be at this stage of your life.

    There is a saying that if you don’t know where you are going, everywhere you get to will look like your destination.

    We all have one life to live and every year must count in whatever we do.

    For one reason or the other, we may not be able to achieve all we set out to do in 2017 like in other years, but we must take proper stock.

    What did you or did not achieve? What worked and what did not? What higher targets do you have to set for yourself in 2018?

    How can you overcome the challenges of 2017?

    Learn to celebrate your achievements and admit your shortcomings.

     

    What do you want to be known for in 2018?

    A few years ago, I learnt a lesson on how to be focused and be known as an expert on what I know how to do.

    A young lady friend, Ronke Kosoko, @RonkeEmployment on Twitter got me thinking when she introduced herself as an Employment Solutions Strategist.

    I realised that it was not enough to say I am a journalist. There are thousands of journalists worldwide. I asked myself the tough question of what kind of journalist I am.

    What makes me special? What can I proudly claim to do better than many of my contemporaries? What specialty makes your name come up where crucial decisions are taken about who can do what excellently?

    My answer to the questions was that I am a Journalist and Media Career Development Specialist.

    Since then I have done my best to have what it takes to be what I say I am. I read and research widely about media career issues globally. I write about it on every possible platform and speak on how journalists can enhance their careers in every forum I get a chance to do so.

    2017 has been a very rewarding year for me as a Journalist and Media Career Development Specialist. Apart from my job as a Managing Editor, I have had so many opportunities to train and mentor journalists.

    As we prepare for 2018, decide what you really want to be known for and prepare to give it your full attention.

    Don’t let 2018 be another year when you will be Jack of all trades, Master of none.             You may be multi-talented, but being able to prioritise what you are best at will give you an edge.

  • The New Year we want

    The annual greetings of Happy New Year to herald the beginning of every new year obviously comes with the assumption that the new year will be better than the former.

    Surviving 365 days in a country like ours with the dire economic situation we are going through calls for celebration and expectation of a better tomorrow. As 2017 draws to a close, many Nigerians are looking forward to a 2018 that will be a lot better and a truly happy one.

    This year, I remember writing a piece on how tough the economic situation is for the majority who according to the United Nation’s statistics live under a dollar per day. I lamented how I, like some others who are just a little better than the majority, have to cope with endless calls for assistance.

    When you get a call or text from someone you have not heard from for some time or others who you know are victims of our precarious economy, you can guess what it is about. You must be stone hearted not to part with some amount, however little.

    Except you don’t have yourself, how do you ignore a request from someone who has not eaten for a day or not sure what the family will eat?  How do you pretend not to be bothered when you are told by some old-time colleagues that their children may be sent out or school or deny admission because they cannot pay the required fee?

    For those who have managed to pay their children’s fees and have been eagerly waiting for the children to get employed and be relieved of the burden of taking care of them, their hopes and expectations have been dashed.

    At various government levels and in the private sector, workers are owed salaries and their entitlements for months without any assurance of when they will be paid.

    December is supposed to be a festive period, with the signs of celebration being in the air from at most the beginning of the month, but that has not been the case for some years now. One does not have to wonder much why only a few can celebrate the way it should be. Town is hard, to put it colloquially!

    It is against this background that my prayer like that of most Nigerians is that 2018 has to really be a happy new year for the greeting to make any sense. If not, we need to begin to think of why we should be greeting ourselves happy New Year when the new years are turning out to be worse than the previous ones.

    Already, the signs of yet another tough year are there considering the observation of the Senate on the proposed federal budget which may make it impossible to pass the document early enough. When budgets are not passed early enough, many things get stalled and the average Nigerian who is battling hard to make ends meet suffer for it.

    More than ever before, the Buhari government and those at the state and local government levels must take necessary steps to ease the economic hardship in the country and make 2018 worth our expectation of better days ahead.

  • Kenya on my mind

    Kenya on my mind

    Dateline: Friday, December 15, Nairobi, Kenya

    I spent last week in Nairobi, Kenya, attending a School of Communications Rights Seminar on Displacement, Interfaith Dialogue and Peace-building organised by the World Association for Christian Communication based in Canada.

    We were just about ending the programme when I got a mail reminding me of my column for this week.

    So what do I write about? I thought of the option of asking for the page to be filled with another write-up instead of putting myself under the pressure of writing the column for this week.

    Much as I would have wanted not to write and embark on sight-seeing with other colleagues before flying out Saturday morning, I chose to share my thoughts about Kenya which could well be my second country.

    I have had the opportunity of travelling there about ten times in the last fifteen years. Not only have I seen the beautiful capital city of Nairobi, I have on some of the visits gone to various parts including the Rift Valley, Naivasha and Limuru.

    I have enjoyed interacting with the people of the country, other visiting Africans and other nationals like I did on this visit. Kenya is indeed a destination country with its well-developed tourist attractions and it’s always a pleasure to be there.

    Despite the recent political tension in the country over the recent presidential election, which almost necessitated the postponement of the seminar I attended, it was a big relief that the opposition group called off its plan to name an alternate president in protest against the conduct of the election.

    Kenya like other African countries needs peace to sustain whatever level of development it has been able to achieve. It would have been a shame if reasons did not prevail and a major crisis had broken out over the election.

    It is not for nothing that most major continental programmes hold in Kenya. It is centrally located and has necessary facilities and an ambience of international standard.

    Getting the Supreme Court of the country to nullify the first election over irregularities was a major landmark achievement which the opposition should be proud of. It’s the first of its kind of judgment on the continent and the judges deserve commendation.

    Withdrawing from participating in the re-run election was not the best option for the opposition and with the later judgment affirming the second election, peace should be allowed to reign.

    There will always be another opportunity for election and hopefully the table could be turned around if the people prefer the opposition like they did in Nigeria, Ghana and Gambia.

    I join in congratulating Kenya on its 54th Independence anniversary marked last Wednesday. May peace continue to reign in the land. May the developments so far achieved not only be sustained, but surpassed in the years ahead.

    President Uhuru Kenyatta has the task of uniting the country. He must genuinely take steps to address whatever the concerns of the opposition or other groups are. Peace without justice cannot last for too long.

  • For those who give

    For those who give

    Once in a while, I get requests from people with one form of physical disability or the other in need of financial assistance. There are those who need urgent medical care which they cannot afford to pay for or others who are physically fit but are incapable of meeting their crucial financial obligations.

    Those who ask for assistance usually believe that if their cases are published in the newspapers, they can get the required financial support they need. This is true to a large extent based on a number of cases I have taken time to either write about in my column or ensure their publication in The Nation.

    I must, however, confess that sometimes I only publish to satisfy the person seeking help, not because I am sure he or she will get the required support.  Some of the financial support required is sometimes so much that it seems impossible that anyone will take the appeal seriously and offer to help.

    I remember some years ago when  a woman carrying a baby met me at the peak of the production of the Sunday paper I used to edit to seek for my help to publish about her baby who needed a huge amount for medical treatment in India.

    I could barely finish listening to her ‘incredible request’ considering the production task ahead of me. I immediately referred her to one of my staff to speak to her for whatever the story was worth. We eventually published the story without paying much attention to it.

    About a year later, the woman showed up to inform me that she got financial assistance based on the story from a local government chairman and she has travelled and returned from India after a successful operation on her baby!

    A very brilliant young lady whose parents could not afford to pay her fees for Higher National Diploma told me about her predicament and all I did was write a piece titled My turn to help, which I circulated by email to some of my friends. In less than an hour, someone paid for her first year and we raised enough to pay for the two-year course.

    Just recently, the case of a blind, talented young man, Holy Ogene, who needed about N340,000 for an eye operation which I wrote about in this column and was also interviewed by Joseph Olaoluwa, an intern, caught the attention of a lecturer in the department of English at Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, (ABUAD) , Mr Olumide Olugbemi-Gabriel,  who rallied his students and their parents to contribute the balance of the required money.

    Holy had given up on getting the support following initial poor response to the publication. To his surprise, he found out much later that a third of the money had been sent to his account and, luckily, Olugbemi-Gabriel called to find out how much he had and got the balance contributed.

    This piece is to appreciate those who have responded to my publications for assistance in the past and those who will still do. It takes having a genuine heart of giving to read about a call for assistance in the paper and respond.

    My prayer for you all is that God will reward you abundantly and meet you at every point of your own need. Amen.

  • Journalism: 30 years and still counting

    Journalism: 30 years and still counting

    Until I saw the facebook announcement of a live chat by the Chairman of the Editorial Board, The Nation, Sam Omatseye,  to mark the 30th anniversary of his journalism career, it didn’t occur to me that I had missed marking my own anniversary.

    As I responded in my comment on the post, Omatseye is undoubtedly an accomplished journalist who has made and continues to make his mark in the profession. From being a reporter, journalism teacher and now a foremost columnist, Omatseye’s 30 years’ odyssey is worthy of celebration and I join in congratulating him for his accomplishments.

    His weekly Monday column in The Nation,’In touch’, is usually a well-articulated discourse of major national issues laced with historical facts and literary allusions. His views may be usually controversial, but he sure comes across as having the strength of conviction on what he writes about.

    He is very passionate about good journalism practice and doesn’t miss any opportunity to advocate for it or spot talented journalists who he goes out of his way to support in every way he can.

    Great journalists are made of the stuff Omatseye is made of based on his reports and writings in and outside the newsroom in the past 30 years. I wish him many more years of meritorious practice.

    How times fly. Like Omatseye, it’s over thirty years since I got my letter of appointment as Ogun State Correspondent of The Punch newspaper in May 1987. I still recall how I reluctantly accepted the appointment because what I wanted was a job in the Lagos headquarters and not anywhere else where I had not lived.

    The Managing Director of the paper, Mr Ademola Osinubi, who was then Deputy Editor convinced me that based on copies of my stories he had read, I would be able to do the job despite being a fresh graduate. He also ‘cajoled’ me that I would have an office to myself and a telephone as a state correspondent.

    I have him to thank for the confidence he and the then Editor, Alhaji Nojeem Jimoh, had in me to entrust me with the major responsibility of covering Ogun State which in no small way boosted my confidence and provided unmatchable learning opportunities that prepared me for the years ahead.

    Many things I still do today have their roots in The Punch, including my understanding of the new media and media career development.

    My career has seen me moving from The Punch after twelve years to brief stints in the defunct National Interest, Financial Standard, New Age and now The Nation where I have a few months to equal The Punch years.

    I set out to be a journalist from my secondary school days, thanks to my late father who gave me access to newspapers and many literature books.  Thirty years after, I have no regrets and will do it again if I have the opportunity to start all over again.

    Despite many negative impressions about journalism, the profession has been good to me in too many ways that I can’t deny as I declared in a recent facebook post.

     

  • The case for female journalists

    The case for female journalists

    In the last three months, I have had the privilege of mentoring fifteen amazing female journalists under the Female Reporters Leadership Programme of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism.

    The programme which is supported by the Free Press Unlimited based in Netherlands is meant to position female reporters for leadership in the newsroom and was formally rounded up last Friday in Lagos at an award/appreciation event.

    Like in every area of human endeavours, women are disadvantaged in the media either in terms of being underreported or not having equal opportunities with their male counterparts on the job.

    A pre- project survey conducted by the centre confirmed that except in few cases, women do not occupy major leadership positions in media organisations. Most newspaper houses in the country either do not have women in management positions or the editorial board.

    Due to their absence in major decision-making levels, gender issues are not mainstreamed, thus making it impossible for the media to reflect the true picture of how reported issues affect women. Even the women journalists have become accustomed to the male-centred reporting that they are not conscious of the need to subject their reporting to gender analysis.

    Based on the leadership projects implemented and the stories they published and broadcast which was the basis for completing the fellowship, the fellows proved that they were ready to take up the challenge of redressing the negative narrative of women in leadership positions in newsroom if given the necessary atmosphere to maximise their potential.

    Virtually all the fellows organised leadership and editorial trainings for other female colleagues and interns in their media houses. Many female journalists and interns who had hitherto not had the opportunity of participating in structured empowerment sessions learnt a lot based on the feedbacks and wanted more of such sessions to enhance their skills.

    Considering that most media houses do not have budgets for continuous trainings on the job, the fellows have shown that they and other female colleagues like their male counterparts have the capacity to provide necessary leadership skills that can enhance the staff productivity.

    Instead of allowing most interns from higher institutions to idle away like they do in most media houses, the experiment by the fellows should provide a template to grooming student and young journalists who need deliberate, planned and sustained mentoring for them to understand what the profession is all about and what they need to do to excel.

    During the various training sessions, the issue of sexual discrimination and harassments in newsroom kept recurring and various suggestions were made on the need to address them.

    As much as female journalists were implored to hone their skills to take on any role in their organisations and not give unnecessary gender excuse, the need for media managers not to stereotype women was made. Female journalists should be given equal chances to prove their mettle instead of being disqualified from consideration for some positions based on their gender. As the Coordinator of the Wole Soyinka Centre, Motunrayo Alaka, rightly stated, “what we are asking for is not a takeover, but equal space for female journalists to operate.”