The Daily Trust Deputy Editor-in-chief, Dr Suleiman A. Suleiman, has tasked the media and citizens to properly monitor the forthcoming general elections for fairness and accountability.
He gave the charge while presenting a keynote paper titled, “2023 Elections and the Media: How not to set agenda,” at the 10th Press Week Lecture organised by the Mass Communication Students Association of Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai, Niger State.
Suleiman said Nigerian media and citizens needed to do more in holding leaders to account, explaining that many eligible voters would be disfranchised in the forthcoming general elections by physical, social and economic insecurity facing the country if activities were not properly monitored by the media and citizens.
“Elections are not just means by which citizens can freely choose or elect their leaders. The most important thing about elections is that they are constant reminder that power belongs to the people, not the leaders.
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“If democracy is a house, then the people, as voters, are the landlords, while the leaders are the tenants,” he said.
Suleiman also observed that religious leaders had taken over the agenda-setting role of the media and politicians preferred talking to them because the media was not doing enough in agenda-setting for the people.
He said the Media Trust Group was already leading in providing proper perspectives to electoral discourse on the 2023 general elections and called on other media organisations to take a cue from the company.
In her paper titled, “Social Media: A tool to Achieving Credible Elections,” the Chief Press Secretary to the Niger State governor, Mary Noel-Berje, underscored the vital role of social media in shaping political discourse in the country.
Represented by her aid, Mr Dahir Kure, Noel-Berje said even though social media had been abused, if properly harnessed, it would serve as the best platform for monitoring elections.
Earlier, the Head of the Department of Mass Communication, Dr Ternenge Ende, said the annual press week lecture had served as an avenue where professionals and experts were invited to broaden the knowledge of students beyond classroom discussions as journalists in the making.
He said Media Trust had led over the years in bringing new initiatives into journalism practise and called for collaboration in the area of professional training of students and employment of the best-graduating students from the department.
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