Worried by inflammatory comments by politicians during electioneering campaigns, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega has called on media managers to moderate such comments.
Speaking at a two-day workshop for members of the INEC Press Corps in Kaduna at the weekend, Jega said the media has a critical role to play in improving the democratic process saying, "it needs to improve on the objectivity and accuracy of reportage of the electoral processes. It also needs to become more socially responsible in content management – for instance, by moderating reportage of inflammatory utterances by reckless politicians."
Represented by INEC Commissioner in charge of Information, Prince Adedeji Soyebi, Jega praised the media for its role in ensuring improvement in the electoral process with conduct of the 2011 general elections.
"For INEC as presently constituted, our experience with the media has been largely salutary; and I must say that much of the credit should go to you, members of the INEC Press Corps, who have reported our operations and activities constructively to the public through your media organisations. I have said it before, and would not hesitate to say again, that whatever gains were recorded in the April elections would have been impossible without the generous support of the media for INEC and the democratic process," he said.
On the forthcoming governorship elections in Bayelsa, Adamawa and Sokoto states, Jega said the commission has commenced preparations to conduct its best elections ever.
According to him, "we are taking deliberate steps to ensure that every subsequent election we conduct between now and the next general election in 2015, will be progressively better than preceding ones. The upcoming governorship elections in some states will be test cases in this regard."
Various scholars and veteran journalists delivered papers at the workshop sponsored by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) in collaboration with INEC.
DailyTrust