Nigerian mass information practitioners have greater duty to the rest of Nigerians to evolve, establish, promote, uphold and preserve the values by which our president, governors, local government chairmen, legislators, ministers, judges, bankers, petroleum companies and marketers, the National University Commission (NUC), researchers, medical doctors, and bio-scientists carrying out their activities to achieve, enhance and preserve our national and international interests than other Nigerians. Where they should begin is to evolve and institutionalise the beliefs, models, practices, morals, ethics, standards and goals that would constitute our national values or interests.
Consequent on the lack of national values now, Nigerians have no generally accepted or common means of evaluating, understanding and judging their actions as right or wrong, good or bad, just or unjust, ethical or unethical, moving forward or backward. The active participation of Nigerians in religious activities has not given them dedication and commitment to the nation. An action is good, right, just and moving forward only to the man or the group of people carrying it out, the people who benefit from it, and the people who are bribed to support, promote or uphold it. The mass information practitioners cannot rightly be excluded from benefitting from this vice. They benefit by supporting, keeping silent, or receiving “brown envelop”.
Also, consequent on the lack of national values, Nigerians have no common attitudes to the political, economic, trade, agricultural, scientific, technological, education and other actions of foreign governments and their agencies, foreign organisations, especially the United Nations organisations, and sundry foreign groups of people. Nigerians have no foreign government as a common enemy, and no common or agreed strategies for relating with foreign governments, their agencies, and sundry foreign groups of people to always achieve, enhance and sustain or preserve the interests of all Nigerians. On the contrary, we are used by foreign governments and businessmen to achieve their interests.
In specific terms, Nigerians have no true sovereignty and independence, no nationalism, no loyalty to fellow Nigerians, no leadership values, no participatory values, no domestic values, and no independent safety experiments and standards for regulating scientific, engineering, medical, technological and agricultural practices. Nigerians have no independent safety standards for their foods and medicines. Lack of these vital bases of nationhood and development is why we specialise in taking and applying mindlessly: we took vision 2020, millennium development goals (MDGs), rights of the child, women empowerment and gender equality, etc. It is why we are the economic tools, laboratory guinea pigs, and market for bio-technology and bio-pharmacy companies, etc.
It is why we antagonise ourselves and destroy our traditional ideas, languages, practices, wisdom and their morals and existential values and promote those of Americans. It is why we paid all our loans and began to take new ones with greater affinity, have been devaluing our currencies, receiving salaries in dollars, spend dollars even on the floor of the National Assembly, and increase the cost of our oil based on the sophistry of “fuel subsidy removal”.
Nigerian mass information practitioners have the duty to motivate Nigerians to participate actively in politics as financially-independent opposition party and not as opportunistic individuals and groups, to achieve national and international interests. They have the duty to ensure that the president, governors, local government chairmen, legislators, judges, ministers, university lecturers and other Nigerians who are in the positions that matter to Nigerians carry out their duties to Nigerians with absolute dedication to sovereignty, nationalism, patriotism, morality or ethics, and efficiency to redress our present situation and achieve greatness.
This means that Nigerian mass information practitioners have the duty to ensure that Nigerians do not suffer any loss, disadvantage, harm or death due to the activities of any foreign government or its agency, any United Nations, or any foreign company or group of businessmen. Their tools make them best suited for carrying out the duties named.
It may be argued that mass information practitioners are limited by the laws and the attitude of any government to the content of the information they give. As a counter-argument, it is argued that removing the limitations is part of the duties of mass information practitioners, that doing so is absolutely necessary for the institutionalisation of the subordination of the president, governors, local government chairmen, legislators, ministers, courts, ambassadors, and other people in our governments to national values, interests or good. Based on their tools, they only can overcome the evil, criminality and corruption in our governments and in other social institutions, reform them, change their model, practices and milieu, and institutionalise the change.
To achieve these ends, our mass information practitioners must practice active nationalism, independence, and loyalty to Nigerians and national interests as the only sacred cows. These demand that they must practice keen observation, intellectual sensitivity, thoughtfulness, indefatigability, steadfastness, irrepressibility, incorruptibility, and perseverance. Risks should be taken reasonably as they were advised concerning slander during their training to be journalists.
• Odor is an independent researcher.