The Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) Kogi council has cautioned politicians in the state against castigating media professionals for their roles in the just concluded governorship primary of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Speaking at a press briefing in Lokoja, Kogi capital, on Sunday, Adeiza Momoh Jimoh, chairman of the council, said politicians have been making claims that the governorship primary was not conducted despite the media coverage of the exercise.
Momoh Jimoh said claims suggesting that journalists falsified reports of the primary election results were untrue.
“Our attention has been drawn to some reports in the media by politicians since the conduct of APC governorship primaries in Kogi, trying to condemn the exercise and in a way, impugning the integrity of journalists and our various media houses,” he said.
”They claimed no election held anywhere, that results were cooked and the announcement made.
“I want to put it on record that our members (journalists) went to the field on election day and monitored the process across the state.
”Audio, videos, and pictorials evidence of the exercise were gotten from the field by journalists while monitoring the process and reports were sent to various media houses, based on their observations on the field.
“Our members were fair enough to report places where voting started early and some other places where there were delays in the arrival of electoral materials.
“Having monitored and reported the process in our media outlets, journalists converged at the collation center at the state APC secretariat in Lokoja and stayed up till 3 a.m. in the morning of Saturday to also cover the collation and declaration of results.
”For any aggrieved politician to now assert that all these sacrifices by journalists amounted to colluding to declare concocted results, is not just far from the truth but showing disrespect for journalists and their media organisations.
“For us at the Kogi NUJ, we stand by the reports of journalists as published in their various media outlets on the conduct of the election.
The chairman urged politicians to use the appropriate medium to seek redress when the election outcome is not favourable.
”To the aspirants who lost at the primaries, let them know that journalists are not and will never be their problems as they go in search of solutions to their problems,” he added.
