Day Liad Tella, Ishaq Akintola, Abdul-Rahman Balogun, Waheed Odushile, others spoke to minds of Nigerian media

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From left: Director, Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), Professor Ishaq Akintola, Islamic scholar, Alhaji Qasim Alabi, President, Muslim Media Practitioners of Nigeria (MMPN), Alhaji Abdul-Rahman Balogun and Senior Research Fellow Department of Mass Communication, University of Ilorin and former National Commissioner, National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), Alhaji Liad Tella, during the 2017 Symposium of the Muslim Media Practitioners of Nigeria (MMPN), Lagos State Chapter, at the Hall of Lagos State Secretariat Mosque Complex, in Lagos, on Thursday.

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*Urged them to be fair to all as ethics permit no inequity

Barely two years after the Governor of Sokoto State, Alhaji Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, gave a lecture at a convocation of Fountain University, Osogbo, Osun State highlighting most of the problems militating against development in Nigeria as largely caused by unfairness to all by the Nigerian media, senior journalists and fathers of the journalism profession converged on Lagos last Thursday where they further pointed out that the Nigerian media, being Christian missionary oriented, have persistently been unfair to Islam and Muslims in the country.

They were however surprised that the unfairness was going on even as the practitioners saw and knew well that the noble profession never allowed for such professional misbehavior which was said to be clearly against the ethic of the journalism.

Tambuwal before the last Thursday event had bemoaned the manner in which the Nigerian media, being Southern concentrated, had played one religion and one ethnic group above another and had so reported and treated them in their reportage, which he said had been responsible for most of the conflicts the nation had witnessed where those that should report the truth and balancing of occurrences were themselves unfair as they showed biases for one religion and ethnic group to the detriment of others.

As if they were now two years after just waking up to the ventilated pains of Tambuwal as he stated in the auditorium of Fountain University Osogbo at that time, Senior Research Fellow, Department of Mass Communication, University of Ilorin, Alhaji Liad Tella, led the talk at the 2017 Symposium of the Muslim Media Practitioners of Nigeria (MMPN), Lagos State Chapter, held at the event hall of Lagos State Secretariat Mosque Compound, Alausa, Ikeja, where he called on practitioners of the Nigerian media to ensure fairness, balancing and level of unbiased disposition in their attitude to journalism.

Speaking as Guest Speaker at the event, where his paper titled “Hajj operation and media responsibility” highlighted how some of the challenges faced during hajj operations as poor information management, Tella urged for an embracement, on the part of media practitioners, of pristine journalism ethics in the coverage of hajj and Islamic affairs generally.

Noting however that, although Christian journalist is bound by the ethic of the profession to handle Islamic reports fairly just like Muslim journalist is bound to handle Christian reports fairly, Alhaji Tella charged the media organizations and journalists, particularly emphasizing the role of Muslim journalists, to wake up to the challenge of promoting better understanding of hajj.

The former Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of National Concern Press Limited, Alhaji Liad Tella, who is also the founding President of Muslim Media Practitioners of Nigeria (MMPN), said negative media reportage from negative perception might be due to ignorance or lack of desire to understand Islam or due to deliberate bias as a result of inherited bigotry.

He however called on those that are today in charge of the affairs of MMPN years after he had led it to rise up to the challenge of establishing a resource centre for the training of journalists, graduates and OND holders, whether graduating as journalists or not, to fill the gap to rescue Islam and Muslims from the unfairness of reportage being currently suffered in the hands of the Nigeria, noting that although every journalist was trained to be fair but that there was no way Muslims would expect that Christian journalists would properly report their religion if they did not rise to the challenge and do it by themselves.

Tella, a former National Commissioner, National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), said: “Muslims and hajj affairs managers have done very little to appropriate, engage, and stimulate the media towards a better understanding of Islam and hajj affairs by the media. Where efforts were made, it has been so little.

“Hajj is the largest collection of people in a single sacred location, in a country using a single airport, until very recently when Madinah Airport became a complementary airport to Jeddah International Airport, two million people flying into Saudi Arabia within three weeks is not a mean air traffic management in term of landing, parking and taking off. No nation and no airport in the world is so challenged,” he said.

Also, former Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of The MONITOR, Alhaji Liad Tella explained that Ministries of Interior, Foreign Affairs, Health and service providing agencies such as Nigeria Airport Authority, Cargo handling companies, tour operators and other service providers were involved in the hajj management.

Speaking further he said that, “Lopsided Muslim presence in the media, notwithstanding, professional ethics of Journalism make fairness, balance and objective reportage of events and issues mandatory and inviolable. Facts in journalism are sacred while comment is free. Truth is supposed to be the fountain of journalism but perception based on political, ethnic and religious primordialism has brought in slanted and bias reportage to the centre of journalism practice.
“Balancing is thrown to the wind when issues concerning hajj is reported. Half-truth are deposed and ventilated by the media as long as somebody can be credited with making the statement. Most often when reports about hajj are filed by field journalists, no responsible effort is made to check, cross check and double check the facts before filing the report for publication. The right of reply on such issues is most often than not violated with impunity,” he said.

Also in attendance at the event anchored by Mr. Jubril Folami of Lagos State Broadcasting Services were many dignitaries including the National President of the Nigerian Union of Journalist (NUJ), Alhaji Abdulwaheed Odushile, Director, Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), Professor Ishaq Akintola, National President of Muslim Media Practitioners of Nigeria (MMPN), Alhaji Abdul-Rahman Balogun, Chairman Lagos State MMPN, Alhaji Kabir Alabi Garba, Chairman Lagos State Chapter of Nigerian Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ), Alhaja Sekinah Lawal, media executives and others.

Also speaking, MMPN National President Abdul-Rahman Balogun, gave brief history of MMPN.

He was surprised that many of the newspapers owned by Muslims from Concord to Monitor and till present had no Muslims at their top echelon thereby working against the interest of Islam in the country.

“We have the media but we are shortchanged,” he said.

Balogun wondered that Muslim journalists themselves were problem the Muslims was facing in the hands of the Nigerian media and asked for a change of attitude.

In his remarks, the Director of Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), Professor Ishaq Akintola, was dismayed that on two occasions one local TV and the other international had brought him on set deliberately to insult him and cause misinformation about Islam as they deliberately brought nominal Muslims along who were the ones allowed to speak on cogent Islamic issues and who therefore, according to him, misrepresented the religion.

He however saw hope in MMPN as he charged the Muslim media practitioners to be the ones that would take the Muslims out of the challenges they had with missionary dominated media.

In his own speech, President of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Alhaji AbdulWaheed Odushile, noted that “present day journalists don’t take mentoring” saying it was a real problem.

Asserting that journalism was one major tool to propagate Islam,  the NUJ chief particularly called on Muslim journalists to show interest in taking mentorship from leaders in the profession.

Odushile said in his three decades in the newsroom “there was no section where it was written, “attack Islam”, but Muslims themselves in the newsroom are afraid to be active,” he said.


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