 The International Press Center IPC in Nigeria has joined the global community to raise concerns about press freedom violations, stressing the need for stakeholders' collaboration to serve God its freedom. The IPC, which made the call in a statement by its communications officer, Olutoy Ayode, to mark the 2022 World Press Freedom Day, urged the federal government to respect its commitment and uphold the right to freedom of expression, as enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the African Chatter on Peoples and Human Rights. The organization stated that, since 2020, it had identified over 100 journalists and other media professionals who had been victims of surveillance, spying, harassment, threats, violence, assaults, battery, unlawful arrests, jailing, kidnappings, and suspected murder. We are now being joined by NUJ Chairman Lagos Chapter Adelaya Ajayi. Glad to have you, Mr Ajayi. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you. Now, let's evaluate press freedom, especially here in Nigeria. Can we say that we are there yet? Well, the press freedom in Nigeria is not totally free, and we are not yet there. It's not yet to be heard when we talk about press freedom in Nigeria. The function of the press is to inform, entertain and educate, but there are some factors impeding the activities of the media in Nigeria, and these factors are addressed by both the government and even the private sector owners of media establishments. It is not yet to be heard. What are these factors? What are these factors you said have not yet been addressed? Well, I guess to do with the hazards of the job, the owners must ensure that journalists are well protected, safety of journalists in the face, very, very paramount, and then there is this ability to allow journalists free hand, to give them free hand, in line with the code of ethics. The ownership influence is also one of the factors affecting the performance of journalists. And apart from that, harassment, as you mentioned in this report, harassment, assassinations, and so on and so forth, are some of the factors also impeding the activities of the press. And you know, a lot of impunities, there are impunities against the press, a lot of media men have been, in the last 10 years or 15 years, have been either assassinated, maimed or harassed. And the perpetrators of all these dust attacks should be brought to, almost be brought to book. So, until all these issues are addressed, we cannot say there is total press freedom in Nigeria. Okay, when you say ownership interest, hinders press freedom, what do you mean by that? You know what I mean is the ownership, you know, you will place the pipe in journalism, or in every palace, you will place the pipe at the same time. The owners, every media establishment has its own style book, its own style, and it is what the owner wants you to write. That's subjectivity in journalism. You know, it should be allowed, it should be given free hand to operate, whether you are editor or reporter, it should be given free hand to operate. It should not be subjective, it should be objective in your report, factual, factual reporting. But this is what you now want you to write, that you write, whether government establishment or private sector. So all these ways of gargling the press, the press should be given free hand to operate. What do you think the government can do? Yeah, what can the government do to defend the media from, first of all, this... How can the government make things better? Well, it's just to give the press free hand and then to protect the safety in defence. You are talking about kidnapping, harassment, you know, you will discover that for instance, recently, or in the last year, it was a battle between the MPO that is Nigerian, Nigerian, and Nigerian journalist, and Nigerian guilt of editors, against, against two bills, two bills that, that's fed into the non-assembly for amendment, the Nigerian press should be, and the National Broadcasting Commission be, we, those two bills have been suspended, amendment bills have been suspended for now, but until government listens to the media, or the government allows the media free hand to operate, then we can see we have total press freedom in Nigeria. Well, the right journalists have lost their lives, you know, in the exercise of their profession. How best, how best can they be immortalised? Well, well, you will record that a crisis motivated, the late crisis motivated, Tyre Autosyn, were victims of the Liberian war, and champion then, when champion was vibrant, they named the library after Tyre Autosyn, they named it Tyre Autosyn Library, and I think, you know, champions, I don't know, champion is trying to recuperate again, champion but I think other media houses should, should do so, apart from media houses, we on our part as AUG, we will follow, we will follow you, because this is just a pointer now, that we need to emulate, I mean to immortalise, sorry, to immortalise our heroes, those who lost their lives in the course of duties, we have a number of them, if I start mentioning them, we won't live here today, so I think we should immortalise them, because these are heroes, they were highly assassinated, they were highly arised, both those arised, those assassinated, we will immortalise them as they have said, and that is a very good initiative that we have to, we have to work upon, work upon and at the AUG level, in CPT, as I said, that all this is our own. Thank you. To the government of perpetrators of those dastardants, Dastardants who continue, we want them to bring them to book, they cannot be left free like that, those killings cannot be straightened under the carpet. Well, thank you so much, Mr. Adelaia Jai, NUJ Chairman Lagos Chapter. Thank you for your time.