 President Mohamed Buhari and the President of the Senate, Ahmed Lawn, has urged the media to express its freedom with responsibility and without recklessness. Now, Lawn also admonished the media to purge itself of bad eggs, promising that the National Assembly won't pass anti-press legislations. The president also charged those who managed government information to do everything in the public interest, while also encouraging the media to use the Freedom of Information Act to make its job easier. Well, joining us to discuss this is Dikwa Olayaku, he's a journalist and Tommy Bolade, a media consultant. Thank you, gentlemen, for joining us. Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you for having me. All right. I'm going to start with you, Dikwa. The president has, and the Senate president, obviously, like I said, have asked the media to express its freedom responsibly. Firstly, I'd like to ask if the press is free in Nigeria. Do we experience some form of freedom to an extent, or do we have press freedom in Nigeria? Thank you for having me on this special day of the World Press Freedom Day. Yeah, we can, comparatively, we can say the Nigerian media press has a certain degree of freedom. But by nature of our job, it is not always possible to be different of those people in government. It's just like when they say man is born free, everywhere you go, you see man in chains. Everything applies to the press in Nigeria, or in most countries. Yes, there is always the assurance of press freedom, but everywhere you go, you see the press in chains. And these chains could be in form of legislation, and it could be in form of actions and activities of people in government. If you look at section 22 of the Nigerian constitution that specifies the function of the press, you will know that by virtue of this constitution, by virtue of this section rather, the press in Nigeria is like running a battle with people in government. But one good thing that has always given us joy is that at the end of the day, the press or the ink has always proved to be mightier. That is why one individual came up with this slogan, 10 is mightier than gone. But with the issue of press freedom generally, I think I will align myself with the president's submission. Because everywhere by virtue of training, by virtue of assignments, we always look at press freedom from one leg. We don't always look at the second leg of press freedom. And that is why there is always conflict between people in government and then with the practitioners. Especially if you like that today's World Press Day Day, usually celebrated on the 3rd of May of every year, it talks about to remind the governments of their need to suspect the commitment to press freedom. That is the first leg. And the second leg of the celebration of World Press Freedom Day is a day of reflection among media practitioners on issues of press freedom and professional ethics. This thing is very, very key. From the perspective of hope, you are free to write just as what Section 39 of Nigeria Coalition says, freedom of expression, other to receive or impact information. That one is basically. At the same time, this responsibility of this freedom rather comes with a great responsibility, which we are going to expand on as the program progresses. Okay. I want to bring Tommy in to this conversation. I mean, responsibility, press freedom. I mean, like you said, we are supposed to be responsible for whatever we put out. Responsible reportage is also very important because as we speak, before you wake up in the morning to look for the papers or turn on the radio, social media is already a gog with the stories. Hence why social newspapers and media houses have also gone to social media. But then the press has its job cut out for it, meaning that we have to deal with issues of sieving the truth, bringing the facts out. But there's a lot of propaganda on social media, and sometimes this propaganda is being put out by politicians. So how can the media stay above board in this situation? Especially in Nigeria, we see all sorts every day. And most of the time, it's social media that brings up or whips up these sentiments that sometimes could cause somebody to lose their lives because some form of tension in a certain area of the country. So Tommy, as someone who's played in this space for a long time, we do have our job cut out for us, but how do we keep our heads above water? Because the times really seem to be tough. Yeah, thank you very much, Mary. The times are changing, I would say. I think now more than ever, journalists need to work with greater speed and efficiency than they are used to in the past. But newspapers at this time of the day would have finished their production for the day and they would go to bed and probably assemble again around midday the next day. Pretty much the same for newspaper and for TV and radio. But now things are changed. We are now in a 24-hour news cycle. It hasn't been helped by technology that we now have available to us. So if we don't report what is happening, there's somebody on Twitter, Instagram or any of the social media platform that's going to break it, that's going to beat us through it. And I think a lot of journalists are under the pressure of not wanting to be outdone by people on social media and that leads sometimes to people making mistakes. But what I would say is that we shouldn't get carried away by social media and these new technologies that have been made available. We need to stick to the good old way of I'm gathering our news, running it through the usual processes of double checking to ensure that your facts are right, attributing and all of that. Yes, there's a need to rush and print and publish. There's a need to do that so that you don't lose audience, so that your audience don't find a new source for their information. But it's more important for you to disseminate what is right than to put out what is fictitious or what is fake. I think the term now is fake news. So for those of us who still work within conventional news environments, we cannot get too carried away by social media. And that's not to say that we shouldn't use social media, we should use social media, but we should ensure that the way we use it defies the good work we are doing in our newsrooms, wherever we find ourselves, whether radio, TV or print, and not get carried away. We were in an era where people wanted to be the first to break it on social media, where people are looking for clicks on their website, so they are quick to just publish anything. The way I put it is they should first ask questions later. We cannot fall into that trap, especially as we find ourselves in a very complex situation where in a country where there isn't quite a lot of... the citizenry isn't so educated, so they can't tell one from the other most times. They look up to us to ensure that all of the facts, all of the news that we disseminate are properly resourced and have gone through the process and will not cause harm to them. So if we want to now get into that rat race of rushing to social media or rushing to print first without doing our due diligence, what is going to happen is that we are going to be entrenching this behavior of just putting out false information, jumping in on the propaganda, biting the bait that people have put out on social media. You are right, Marianne, quite a number of people announce certain gender, sometimes mischievously, a lot of times mischievously on social media. For those of us who work in conventional news environments, we need to ensure that we look at it two times, three times before we say, oh, this is something worth pursuing, this is something that is actually self-serving and we will not be a part of it. So we just need to be a bit more aware and not get carried away by the frenzy of social media, which sometimes can be misleading. Let's talk about this post-truth era that we all find ourselves in. There are times where the journalists or the media practitioners go through the trouble of digging up this information with the facts that come with it. And the same government that is asking us to be responsible comes out to call it fake news because it is not serving them at that point. And then, according to Mr. President in the speech that was put out, that we need to be sensitive, especially in the situation that we find ourselves now with different ethnicities fighting each other. We're having numbers that are not certain. Sometimes the police will say it's true. The government will come out and say it's five. Really, is it the media? Because most of the time when I'm talking to people on my show, they keep blaming the media. It's the media's fault. But then the government needs to share its blame or responsibility in playing a part in all of these things that are happening. And what is happening in Nigeria today has become what it is because maybe our governments were too quiet about it or they let it get to this point. So, again, does this not frustrate the job of a journalist in doing due diligence, digging up information, getting facts? And then at the end of the day, the government says it's fake news. Yes, you see, we are an invaders to shift. So to speak, in the manner of speaking, because both the government and the society see you as a threat. You have instances where some journalists have gone to cover events. There are some mishaps. There are riots, natural disasters. And you find out that the victims of this instance will visit their anger on the journalist. That one is there. But on the part of government, governments see the journalist or the press as a rival. But that should take us away from our responsibility. I am very, very happy with the team of this year's celebration, information as a public good. And when I saw that public good, I underlined it. What is the responsibility of a journalist? There is an example I always cite when I'm in this kind of discussion. In 2001, sorry, this popular 9-11, the American invasion, I think it was the 21 or 21, I can't remember again. The 9-11 stuff. After about four, five days of the reportage of these events, when the colleagues first pointed my attention to, is it general people? Did you notice that since we're watching this news analysis, news of this invasion, that no American television station has shown the body of an American being pulled out from the rubble? It was an observation from a colleague in his room. That was when I even became conscious of it. They were giving us figures. They were giving us life feedbacks of how they were doing the recovery or the rescue operations. But they never showed one body of an American being pulled out of the rubble. About six months later, I went on the course. Then I came across some intentional journalists. Some of them from America, from Britain. Then I opened the discussion. And one of the journalists from America told me, is this what he said? He said in the American station, we will show an American body being pulled out of the rubble. He said this one has to do with regulation. It is self-regulation. Because it is going to affect the sensibility of an average American. What is journalism? What is best? It is not the regulatory agency. So as a journalist, you have responsibility. Hello. As a journalist, you have the responsibility that these news are pushing out. Will this serve the public good? What is going to be the effect of these news on the society? Is it going to endanger peace or endanger peace? So I think that should be our major focus. For the most part, Nigeria is just passing through the very difficult time. We have section 22 that is giving us protection to do whatever we want to do. You have the FOI freedom of information arts. It is giving you some degree of freedom to do whatever you want to do. I really wish I had time. I would have gone into the FOI issue. But let me quickly pour this question to Tommy, because we are out of time. because we're out of time. He, Mr. Olayaku has brought up the issue of safety, a section in the constitution that covers us as journalists, but really, are we covered? Where is daddy Atta, let me start with that. People are still asking that question, the journalist. Safety of journalists is also a key thing. I mean, when I was on the radio, people would say, you're not doing investigative journalism, you're not going to, and I always say, give us insurance and then we can go do this, but in Nigeria, there seems not to be, that's not factored into your salary, your allowances. How safe is the average Nigerian journalist, especially the ones who are investigators, the ones who have to do the digging up and the dirty work. What is the safety that is given to us, aside from what is being pointed out in the constitution, are we really safe to go about our businesses knowing that this is Nigeria and we have seen precedences. I mean, I don't even want to go as far as the ones that we were born to hear, the likes of Diligua. So really, is it safe to practice journalism in Nigeria, especially if you're an investigative journalist, Tommy? It's not safe, it's not, and really in Nigeria, nothing really safe as a banker. I don't think you're safe if you work in oil and gas. There's no industry particularly that has any kind of covering. But I think what makes a journalist unique is the fact that more than most of that profession, the journalist's job is to unearth information, is to dig information. And sometimes it comes with some risk. You've mentioned Diligua, there's Bagadakatu and so many other people who have died in the course of doing their job. But even at that, it hasn't stopped people, people are still doing it. I think it's just the passion to deliver the news to people and divide it without influence or without threats from any quarter, is what drives a lot of journalists to do it. But by and large, we don't have a lot of covering in Nigeria and particularly as journalists, we don't, there isn't the guarantee that a story you are working on isn't going to lead to your ending. You mentioned welfare of journalists. A lot of journalists are poorly paid, a lot of them don't have insurance cover, they don't have the safety net they need to do their jobs professionally. They have to think of their welfare, think of their safety first before they even think of pursuing any particular story. Some of the big stories you've heard out of Nigeria, big investigative pieces you've heard out of Nigeria in the last couple of years have been done by independent investigative journalists who get funding from certain organizations to do this or journalists who work with international media outfit who have all of these cover, who can provide them with actual physical security cover if they want to go into dangerous places and they have full insurance cover for them in case anything happens to them. But for most Nigerian journalists practicing around the country, there isn't the assurance that they would have, that they will be taking care of anything that happens to them or that they would even get the kind of support they need while doing these pieces. And I think that's one of the reasons why you don't see a lot of investigative pieces coming out of Nigerian newsrooms because there's that fear. People think of their life, of their livelihood first before they even pursue any story. So really, I really can't blame anybody but these are the problems that we face. So to answer your question, yes, there is no safety in Nigeria as a whole but generally suffrage a whole lot more than in the professional because of the nature of the job we do. So yeah. Well, I want to say thank you. Adura, Tommy Baladeh, Dikpa Olaioku. Thank you very much for being part of this conversation. I would love to continue because there's lots and lots to talk about. But thank you so much for being here. You're welcome. Well, we'll take a short break now and when we return, I will give you my take. Stay with us.