By Stella Odueme
As part of efforts at ensuring accountability of the President Amhed Bola Tinubu’s administration, renowned media outfit, the International Press Centre (IPC) has commenced tracking of the president’s electioneering campaign promises to hold him accountable to the Nigerian citizenry.
At a stakeholders’ roundtable presentation of documented campaign promises of the President and the launch of media election IOs and Web app on Tuesday in Abuja, Executive Directive of IPC, Mr. Lanre Arongundade said the move is to guide against the fact that most Nigerians do not trust electioneering campaign promises of political office seekers.
The compendium contained the campaign promises made by Tinubu during the 2023 electioneering period.
According to Arogundade, such a document would assist in tracking the promises made by politicians during campaign thereby promoting accountability and transparency in governance.
He said; “During the campaigns, we documented the campaign promises of all the presidential candidates which is normally our tradition to publish that of the President so that we can look at his promises in our respective beats.
“Maybe in the area of sports, health education, whichever appeals to us and we can then begin to look at how they are implemented.
“These days, we talk of solution-driven journalism, but you can’t have solutions when you don’t pick promises, follow them up and ensure that they are actually implemented.
“We also need to ask questions if there are challenges to implementation or if there are changes to that plan. That is what we call democratic accountability.We would have been happy if we were able to document the campaign promises of all elected governors as well.
“This is one of the challenges that we’re throwing at our colleagues.”
Arogundade enjoined the media to live up to expectations by setting the political agenda for public office holders to hold them accountable.
“I will say that we have not lived up to expectation in that aspect. One of the things we talked about in terms of the role of the media is to set agenda at elections but often it is the politicians that set the agenda for us and they are clever at doing this.
“They come up with statements, they attack themselves and we’ll begin to report that and then forget the issues.
But when the elections are over, we also don’t remind ourselves of those things that are promised or go back to them.
“That is why I said we have not lived up to expectation and we’re hoping that this time around, things will be different by making use of these documented campaign promises,” he noted.
Arogundade equally canvassed the need for constitutional press freedom for media practitioners across the country.
He assured that the IPC and other partners would engage the 10th National Assembly on the existing media laws and work out how these laws can favour media practitioners.
“We just came back from Owerri where we had the convention of the Nigerian Guild of Editors. One of the issues that also came up is the fact that we need to push for constitutional protection for press freedom in Nigeria. “That is what makes the media in Ghana for example, better than in Nigeria. It is written in the Ghanaian constitution that government shall not do anything to tamper with press freedom. It is also written that the government shall not appoint the Editors of even the government media. That responsibility is that of the National Mass Media Commission.
“So, there are constitutional aspects to this. We are not closing our eyes to the fact that we are often endangered when we try to hold governments accountable. We’re also hopeful that the new government too, will be media friendly. We’re hopeful that those who are editors, those who are journalists will be working with this government will remember the constituency they’re coming from.
“It will be too bad if, at the end of the day, they begin to justify attacks on journalists,” he stressed.
Media aide to President Tinubu, Tunde Rahman, who was represented by a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Ayo Oyalowo, assured that the president will fulfill all campaign promises made during the electioneering.
For instance, he said key appointments made so far has given credence to the fact he will not disappoint the people.
“I remember the President during his acceptance speech, said and I quote, ‘I will form a government of national competence’, now, we can see that from the few appointments he has made.
“This is a President that is prepared to govern. I can tell you that this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are greater things to come in the coming days. Out of nine aides, four are women. Women should go and sleep under this administration, your interest will be protected,” he assured.
Founding Executive Directive, African Centre for Leadership Strategy & Development, Dr. Otive Igbuzor outlined four mechanism of holding the government accountable to the people which include; internal mechanism, parliamentary mechanism, citizens/ civil society organizations mechanism and independent mechanism.
