By Isiyaka Wunti
Governor Bala Muhammad of Bauchi state is among the few governors from the thirty six states of the federation that established a better relationship with media through active engagement of journalists in government policies and programmes.
This is because, journalists as members of the fourth esteem of the realm are being carried alone in any form of activities of Governor Bala Muhammad led administration. Coverage of the Governor’s functions were not limited to only government house Press Crew but members of the State Correspondents Chapel, visiting journalists as well as media consultants.
There is also a cordial relationship between the Governor and leadership of Nigeria Union of Journalists NUJ at both the state and national levels. The National President of NUJ Christopher Osigwuzo and his counterpart of the state council comrade Umar Sa’idu have made so much commendations on how the Bala Muhammad administration is providing opportunity for journalists to carryout their duty.
Tactically, he is exhausting the excuses of mischieve reporters who might have manufactured news against the interest of his administration and the state, by allowing Journalists to ask relevant questions in any form to enable them obtain the information needed in their daily reportage.
Opportunity has also been given to a team of no fewer than one hundred journalists from both mainstream and social media to embark on a media tour with a view to ascertaining the performance of his administration in various sectors of Education, Health, Water Expansion Project, Roads Constructions and Rehabilitation among other provision of infrastructure across the state.
To ensure conducive working environment for the leadership of state journalists and comfortability to organizers of press conferences, the media friendly Governor assured on a total overhaul of state NUJ Secretariat. Under this commitment, it is expected that, the Press Centre would witness a complete rehabilitation and be provided with state of the art facilitaties to meet the global based practices.
To this end, a team of engineers from the state ministry of work accompanied by consultants inspected the Secretariat in preparation of commencement of the project.
Furthermore, he has provided Operational vehicles to the NUJ and the State Chapter of Nigerian Association of Women Journalists NAWOJ to ease their transportation challenges. The mobility is to enable the unions to representing the state during meetings and other official engagements in both state and national levels.
Governor Bala Muhammad has also made similar efforts to journalists of the Federal Capital Territory when he was the FCT minister. Somany media officers were empowered by his different forms of initiatives that cut across employment, allocation of land and houses as well as scholarships.
The motivations encouraged members of the pen profession to reciprocate the Governor’s effort in projecting the good image of the state on the eyes public.
One may not be supervise to know that Bala Muhammad was a member of the fourth esteem of the realm. He writes for Democrat Newspaper and News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), before joining the federal service and subsequently metamorphosed to politician. This has gaven him the opportunity to understand the plights of journalists and the best way to managing them.
The journalists on the other hand are at liberty to intimate him on issues related to their needs or areas that would add value to his administration.
Such a friendly relationship with members of the pen profession has never been witnessed in the state since the return of Democratic Governance, and would no doubt build a solid foundation for a positive reportage of the government’s activities in the eyes of the public.
isiyakaismailwunti@gmail.com