Chief Press Secretary to Abia state governor, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, Mr.
Enyinnaya Appolos has tasked the national leadership of Nigerian Union
of Journalists (NUJ) to redefine the membership status of the body,
saying that anybody who had no link with any media organization should
not be seen as a member of the journalism profession. Appolos who stated this in Umuahia on Tuesday while receiving members
of the Aba Federated Chapel of NUJ, who called on him at his office at
Government House.
The CPS who spoke against the back drop of a letter purported to have
emanated from the John Emejor led NUJ Abia State Council addressing
other registered journalists in Aba as “amorphous journalists”, charged
practicing journalists not to give “hangers-on” in the profession the
opportunity they always seek to rubbish the profession.
“If someone who cannot lay claim or identify himself with any media
organization could address registered and practicing journalists in such
manner as “amorphous journalists”, I think that issue should be looked
into. I am seriously pained because some persons who obviously may not
have any formal training in journalism are working so hard to make
nonsense of a noble profession.
“The time has come for us journalists to ask who is supposed to be a
member of the Nigerian Union of Journalists. The fact that a person
works in the Ministry of Justice does not make him a lawyer. In the same
vein, that I work in a state Ministry of information should not give me
the impetus to talk when journalists are talking.
“None of them can be sent to Maiduguri but all of us here can be sent
to Maiduguri to face the heat of the fight against terrorism. But I
have never heard that any such persons as those ones have ever faced the
hazards of the job that we face,” he said. Appolos said it was worrisome that Emejor who is an information
officer in Abia state Information Ministry would have the temerity to
describe journalists who work in reputable media organizations as ‘an
amorphous group of reporters’ and called on the national body of NUJ to
look into this since according to him it does not happen in other
professions. He said that he came into office barely a year ago as the Chief Press Secretary to render service to the state.
Earlier, Chairman of the Aba Federated Chapel of NUJ, Mr. Okey
Sampson of the Sun Newspapers, said the members paid him a visit to
thank him for his assistance to journalists in the city.
He said that such assistance was unprecedented in the history of the
Aba NUJ Chapel since it was inaugurated in 1980, about 37 years ago. Sampson commended Gov. Ikpeazu for his detrmination to right the
wrongs past leadership in Abia had done against Aba residents which
Appolos described as the basis of his relationship with journalists in
the city. He urged Ikpeazu to continue in the good works he had been
doing, stressing that history will vindicate him.
Source: Abia Facts News
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