2023 polls: Journalists urged to calm tension in the land

From: Femi Oyelola, Kaduna

In view of the political tension in the land, a few days to the presidential and National Assembly elections, a Non Governmental Organisation, Corporate Accountability & Public Participation Africa (CAPPA), has called on media practitioners in the country to help calm the tension through reportage.
In his opening remarks to declare open a training programme for Journalists on the 2023 general elections, CAPPA Executive Director, Akinbode Oluwafemi noted that the tension associated with the forthcoming elections has never been witnessed since the Second Republic.
Oluwafemi noted that the training was organized by CAPPA in partnership with European Union Support for Democratic Governance in Nigeria for the 2023 elections.
He, however, tasked journalists to focus their reports on rural settings in order to draw the attention of relevant authorities for development.
According to him, “There is extremely high tension in the land over the election. I witnessed Shagari/ Awolowo election. There is never a time the country has been on edge like this time. We are in a time that is extremely very difficult to make comments about elections because it could be interpreted or misread otherwise.
“So we are here at this training programme on how to use our reportage to promote peace during the election. The happening in the last two weeks is not healthy for us. People are queuing at banks to access money, but very difficult.
“There is fuel scarcity and the available ones are sold at high prices after many hours on the queue. We need to calm down the tension because the job at hands need national peace.
“Five days to the election we are still trying to see how we can find cash. In villages people cannot assess cash. The tension is too high, so we need to do our work to calm down the tension at this critical period of our national life.
“In conjunction with the European Union, we are working on how to promote peace during the election. We are doing this in six States. We started late due to some circumstances. People should not see the election as arm struggle. The election is like a football match, a winner must emerge and a loser must emerge.
“Also, as journalists, we should be able to promote rural development and draw the attention of leaders in that direction. We need a leader who can serve the interests of the people across the country, not necessarily your ethnic or regional person”.