A non-governmental organisation (NGO) Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, in collaboration with Centre for Environment Human Right Development, has conducted a two-day training for selected members of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
In her opening remarks, Constance Meju, a publisher and one of the facilitators, said that a better understanding of a subject matter will always help a reporter to deliver well.
Meju also said that journalists should link peace-building to the environment because conflict emerged from the many issues on the environment, while tasking the media to drive the narrative in the region.
“The media can solve and fill the gap of leadership by providing a people-friendly solution.
“We need to encourage farmers to farm and reduce food insecurity in the region. The health challenges relating to oil and gas is also there, and the Iinternational Oil Companies have gone and the local Nigerian oil companies have taken over, what did we want the world to know about the Niger Delta?” she asked.
In an interview with journalists shortly after the event, the Executive Director, Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, Emen Okon explained that the two-day training was to equip the media for good environmental justice reporting in the Niger Delta due to many challenges in the region, from oil pollution, degradation, destruction of the ecosystem, mangrove deforestation, insecurity, unemployment and lack of development, among others.
She called for a deliberate and concerted effort of the media to bring these to lime light.
Okon maintained that from the training, many issues erupted, but gender mainstreaming is at the centre stage of all the topics discussed, saying that gender mainstreaming was a good take away as it cut across all the topics.
On the issue of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), she said that journalists should carefully engage leaders of the Host Community Development Trust under the PIA establishment and find out if the women are integrated at each of the levels of the Trust.
She stressed that land grabbing in communities has left the women highly impoverished since there is no alternative to their livelihood.
Meju also observed that the environment was critical to human existence and that any negative issue about the environment affects the women more. She said that reporting issues on the environment must take cognisance of how these issue affect women even in the reportage as journalists.
Meju said that the Niger Delta was under-reported based on the many issues confronting the region. She charged journalists to report incidents of flood with figures so that those in authority can see the magnitude of such devastation.
She regretted that since the farmland in the region have been destroyed by oil pollution, the invasion of herdsmen has compounded the problem. She called on the authorities to do the needful.
“The media should confront and report issues concerning the women,” she said.
Some of the topics and the resource persons include: Principle of Human Right by Steve Obodoekwe; Environmental Reporting by Constance Meju, PIA/Local Content Act by Henry Eferebo, and Reporting Sexual Right by Tombari Koote.
Some of the participants thanked the organisers for the gesture, while calling on others to emulate and give journalists up-to-date training to be more knowledgeable in other fields for effective and accurate reporting.
