In a report entitled: “No single ventilator: But Nasarawa buys N500m car[sic] for lawmakers” which first appeared on Daily Trust online of 16th April 2020, it was reported that “government claimed the cars were ordered before the COVID-19 pandemic”, and that; “Nasarawa has not reported any confirmed case of COVID-19”.
And on further inquiry: “The ventilators have been ordered and we are expecting them anytime soon,” as confirmed by Commissioner for Information Dogo Shammah. Yet the reporter who was writing interviewed three persons: Omar Nurudeen, who said “the presentation of new Toyota Hilux cars to the 24 lawmakers was unnecessary”, while Umar Angibi said “it’s not an illegitimate act” and Francis Orogu, PDP Chairman simply said: “No comment!”, and from the foregoing, Ibraheem Hamza concluded that “Nasarawa State had misplaced its priorities!”
Nigeria recorded its first case of coronavirus on the 27th February 2020 in Lagos and while many other states were still grappling with what to do, Engineer Sule instinctively mandated staff of the Ministry of Health to immediately transport and escort 832 students on Exchange Programme from 18 participating states schooling in Government College, Keffi and Government Girls College, Wamba back to their respective states.
Before COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, Nasarawa State became one of the earliest states in Nigeria to develop an actual case Management Protocol to handle symptoms of COVID-19 at Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital (DASH) in Lafia.
This was done at the same time as the quick upgrade of the Isolation Centre at DASH, while at the same-time government also activated a State Emergency Preparedness Response Team & Rapid Response Team (RRT) for COVID-19, which was replicated in every LGA of Nasarawa State, just as an Emergency Operation Centre was activated and an Incident Manager promptly appointed in Lafia.
While as a governor, Engineer Sule implicitly believes there is an abiding urgency for the state to improve its capacity to contain, detect, prevent, and effectively respond to outbreaks of diseases and viral infections, his personal conviction and administration’s cardinal objective to continually strengthen health is further bolstered and daily supported by the Deputy Governor of his choosing, Dr Emmanuel Akabe, who was the erstwhile Commissioner for Health at the time the centre for disease control was conceived to undertake research and diagnoses into infectious diseases.
One wonders therefore why when writing about lack of ventilators in a state like Nasarawa which actively promotes the health sector, the reporter of Daily Trust will not bother to simply research the background to his topic and present all the facts and context related to COVID-19 and the varying measures being taken by government with a modicum of decency, impartiality and neutrality.
If only the reporter had been that professional, his slanted report would have objectively presented the viewpoint that Governor Abdullahi A. Sule has immediately steered his administration and the good people of Nasarawa State to source for N2 billion in order to improve the preparedness of Nasarawa State for future outbreaks of any other infectious pathogens like COVID-19 by the work at the complex that will house a comprehensive disease outbreak centre.
It is because of the importance which Governor Abdullahi A. Sule places on advocacy and media sensitization, so as to avoid distortion of facts that the governor himself appeared LIVE on a two-hour television programme which was simulcast statewide on radio, where he answered questions from citizens via phone. The approach of Nasarawa State to sensitise and keep citizens abreast with developments on COVID-19 is clearly in tandem with the accepted values of open governance and inclusion.
Engineer Sule has made two statewide broadcasts, signed three proclamations and has insisted that two pages be published every Thursday in Leadership Newspaper and Daily Trust so as to give up-to-the-minute measures being adopted in Nasarawa State to halt the onslaught of COVID-19.
With all the multi-vocal and multilevel measures being adopted to curtail the entry of COVID-19 into Nasarawa State, it is incomprehensible that the reporter of Daily Trust will choose to deviously twist, alter and re-organise his report on official cars for assembly members into a skewed and false retelling of the efforts of government in Nasarawa State with regards to containing the COVID-19, just so as to bring Engineer Sule to disrepute.
For instance, the health workers the reporter quoted as threatening to go on strike for not receiving their March salary are LG employees and not even under the pay of the state government. So how does buying of official vehicles for local lawmakers in the State House of Assembly relate to health workers crying foul over unpaid monthly wages in Doma local government?
There is no gainsaying that high ethical standards are essential to developing and maintaining trust and this is buttressed in its Guidelines On Integrity, where the New York Times states that; “Reporters, editors, photographers and all members of the news staff of the New York Times share a common and essential interest in protecting the integrity of the newspaper.” I quote further: “As the news, editorial and business leadership of the newspaper declared jointly in 1998: “Our greatest strength is the authority and reputation of The Times.
We must do nothing that would undermine or dilute it and everything possible to enhance it.” So says the New York Times.
In an online research published September 8, 2019 titled; “Understanding the Rudiments of Media Research Methodology: Content Analysis of Daily Trust, a Nigerian Daily Newspaper” by the trio of Adamkolo Mohammed Ibrahim, Balarabe Maikaba and Suleiman Mainasara Yar’Adua, the writers described Daily Trust as: “an innovative, versatile and market-driven newspaper!” and went ahead to surmise that: “Daily Trust newspaper more likely than not, intended to set an agenda of peace, tolerance, national consciousness and consolidation of Nigeria’s unity in diversity for the government, citizens and other media outlets.”
Furthermore according to Ibrahim, Maikaba and Yar’Adua, a great deal of the news-related information content on Daily Trust: “attempts to set an agenda for peace, tolerance and co-existence, prioritising national interest over personal or political interests, prioritising economic diversification through agriculture and tourism and prioritising positive national developments over sentiments, ethnicity and regionalism!”
The report published in Daily Trust online was not balanced. A balanced report refers to a report that discusses all views of a particular story and leaves it to the readers to make up their decisions. This particular article was written with hostile intent to show that Nasarawa State government is financially flagrant and morally irresponsible by buying cars for lawmakers at a time of great pandemic, when we should be concentrating on saving lives.
Constructive criticisms are often suggestions for improvement – how things could be done better or more acceptably. But before you criticise us, you owe yourselves the moral responsibility to find out everything we are doing so that your newspaper report can be seen to extoll the professional values and principles of truth and accuracy, independence, fairness and impartiality, humanity and accountability
The word integrity is defined as ‘the adherence to moral and ethical principles; the soundness of moral character.’ Integrity is a synonym for honesty and uprightness, and Governor Sule of Nasarawa State is clearly exhibiting this vital characteristic of integrity in political leadership in the way he is leading the effort to contain and fight back COVID-19.
Lamai is DG, Strategic Communication and Press Affairs to Gov. Abdullahi A. Sule of Nasarawa State.
