Falana, Agbese, others remember Dele GiwaTHE Federal Government has been urged to adopt October 19 as a date to remember all Nigerian journalists who were killed in controversial circumstances. Human rights activists, Femi Falana and Fred Agbaje and veteran journalist, Dan Agbese, made the appeal in Lagos yesterday.They spoke at a symposium with the topic 'Hazards of Journalism Profession and challenges of FOI Law' organised by the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Lagos State Council, to mark the 25th anniversary of the death of the pioneer Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of Newswatch Magazine, Dele Giwa.According to them, it is important that the day is set aside to remember the slain journalists and prick the conscience of those in government on why their mysterious deaths had not been resolved.The event also had the President of NUJ, Mallam Garba Muhammed; the President of Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), Mr. Gbenga Adefaye; the Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Lateef Ibirogba, represented by Ronke Osho; the Deputy Managing Director of the Sun Newspaper, Mr. Femi Adesina; Executive Director of Media Rights Agenda, Mr. Edeotan Ojo, among others in attendance.Commenting on the FOI Law, Agbaje and Adesina called for a special court to try cases emanating from FOI, while the guest speaker, Adefaye, who was the lead discussant, maintained that the FOI Law was not solely for journalists but for all the citizens though it would help to empower the journalists more than the citizens.Pleading with journalists to be ready to exercise patience to go through a due process if they hoped to make use of the law, Adefaye said that it was a law that would help if journalists developed the capacity to use it to punish those who destroy public records.He classified the hazards of the profession into two. According to him, internal hazards include salary challenges and the external hazards include intimidation and an unfavourable economy.Adefaye commended the FOI Coalition for its consistency in the clamour for the FOI Law and its commitment to the cause, noting that many journalists who were claiming before the passage of the law that they needed the law to do their job better did not know the content of the FOI Law.He, however, stated that the law would serve the citizens better if the National Assembly amended the official secret act.Agbese, one of the founders of Newswatch, said that 25 years after the death of Dele Giwa, the dreams of the founding fathers of the publication had died more or less, urging young journalists not to mourn Giwa because of what they heard about him but to mourn him if they were not able to do what he set out to do as a journalist who believed in quality reportage.Muhammed called on the government to revisit all the cases of journalists who died in controversial circumstances from 1986 till date.
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