PERSPECTIVE - When Bauchi Hosted the ‘Lagos’ Media Awards

By ZAILANI BAPPA
Monday, October 3, 2005. .

The 2004 Nigerian Media Merit Awards (NMMA) took place in Bauchi penultimate week, following the state government’s offer to bankroll the entire exercise. The elaborate reception and hospitality showered on the participants was yet another testimony of the open handedness with which the state is known. The occasion, which held on September 24, has come and gone, but definitely left a lot of lessons for us in the media industry to ponder upon. Indeed, the media industry has as a Herculean task in attracting some credibility and respect to the awards from within and without.

This year’s award began with a visit by some members of the NMMA Board of Trustees to the state Governor, Ahmadu Adamu Mu’azu, sometimes in August, to solicit his consent to host the event. Governor Mu’azu, as those who live in Bauchi State since he became governor very well know, is not a man to turn down offers such as this. If not for anything, it draws visitors to his state which he is transforming into a tourism haven in the North-East. Mu’azu jumped at the offer, and thereafter, held a meeting with the delegation on how best to effectively host the event in Bauchi. As practitioners in the state, media representatives were thrilled with the new development and, little wonder, wherever they went people referred to the imminent even as “your own event.” But alas! Was it really so? Was the event at all “our” own? Is the NMMA a misnomer? Those who push the Nigerian media merit award claim it is Africa’s foremost media excellence award. It is intended to be a kind of trust scheme meant to identify those who excel in this noble calling annually. Many distinguished Nigerians have donated funds annually for this exercise. In fact, more are donating, including the Bauchi State Governor, adding to the number this year with a two million Naira Best Tourism Journalist of The Year Award. Being the most popular award that has attracted the support of many donors, the NMMA is now thinking of expanding its frontiers to cover the entire continent! It has a broad based coveraging the print, the radio and the television. Entries are made prior to selection. However, the actual procedure of selection processes to the event proper, leaves much to be desired. In fact, it is mirred in controversy.

There is no doubt that the board parades very prominent names in the journalism business and academia. Reputable and veteran media gurus have made the list which actually is the strength of the entire scheme. But, since the beginning of the project, it has always held in Lagos, which undermines its national claim, a situation so unsettling with many journalists across the country. This shortcoming turns off many interested journalists, not because it is held in Lagos, but the adamant posture of the organizers to respond to this simple observation. It was the President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who suggested that the organisers should make it more credible by rotating the event among the six geopolitical zones. Record has it that this year’s event in Bauchi is the third to hold outside Lagos, after Abuja and Port-Harcourt.

However, the event’s debut in the North-East has educated a lot of journalists more in no small measure on the contradiction in the entire exercise. From the outset, the organizers do not deem it fit to involve the journalists that are still practising in the process. It was a great setback when, among the list of names sent down to Bauchi State as possible guests of the government, the names of key leaders of the practitioners were missing! The names of the President of the Nigerian guild of editors was missing, for instance. The names of the Nigeria Union of Journalists’ president and his secretary did not make the list of over 200 guests at the occasion either. This is not forgetting the fact that the state government has made provision for up to 500 people!

No doubt, the event is supposed to be an affair for journalists. If not for anything, the organizers drew the winners of their awards from amongst themselves. How else could they be encouraged to strive for excellence than to watch their very colleagues in a rare golden handshake? But alas! All the journalists present at the occasion were denied access into the hall, with the consultants, impolitely informing them how much they were not needed at the event. Talk of being a media event! As if he was aware of the problem, Governor Mu’azu later in his speech continued to apologize to journalists for any lapses in the event; also hammering on how understanding the journalists in the state had always been to his government in the past six years, etc.

A total of 34 awards were given out that day. As it has always been, the northern media was at the receiving end. No Awards. Of the whole awards presented that night, none was awarded to any northern based media organization. Despite this glaring lapse, chairman of the selection panel, Price Tony Momoh subtly challenged northern media to take greater interest in the independent and voluntary event. But has the northern media industry not been interested all there years? This is doubtful. On one hand, the veteran, Prince Momoh might be saying that if there were any entries from the northern based media, none merited any of the 34 awards presented this year. And on the other hand he might also be saying that no media organization made any entry this year. In any case he should investigate the workings of his secretariat!

One discovery that baffled any observer is the composition of the selection panel itself. It is a good thing that the “Lagos” media merit awards is now coming out of its shell, and others are having a glimpse at it with greater interest. There is no doubt the fact that the entire seventeen trustees comprise of the echelon of the media industry in this country. A representation from the press council cemented its authority. The selection panel itself, chaired by Prince Momoh, with its 21 members comprising people of high repute in their different callings, but the baffling thing about the panel is that only seven of them are in the media or media-related calling. One wonders, for instance, why Public Relations and Advertising professions are given the tasks of selecting the best among practising journalists in this new millennium!

It is important that as the Fourth Estate of the Realm, and as watchdog in the society, the industry must be made to strive for perfection. Everyone in the media wishes the NMMA a resounding glory, but improvements must be made to ensure that it is truly national first, before the ambitious coverage of the entire Africa. Without doubt, the rotation of the event is a first step towards making the event national. Balancing up the exercise should be next. And editors’ participation to follow. Only then can the NMMA begin to win and earn the confidence of journalists from all parts of the country.

*BAPPA is the Bauchi State Correspondent of the New Nigerian Newspapers.