By Daniel Idonor
As the Nigerian Union of Journalists, NUJ, yesterday flagged-off the insurance scheme for its members nationwide, Vice President Namadi Sambo said any form of attack on journalists should be considered as a crime against humanity.

Such attacks, he noted, have often resulted to death and many other professional high risk hazards, hence the need for high premium insurance policy, to ensure the well being of practitioner.

The Vice President, who unveiled the Nigeria Union of Journalist Insurance Scheme at the Ladi Kwali Hall of Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Abuja, also charged employers in the media to support the scheme to ensure all journalists benefit from all the packages the scheme offers.

Meanwhile the event that has been described as unprecedented and a watershed in the practice of journalism in the country, witnessed a very low turnout as the two ministers in charge of the Ministry of Information and Communication, Professor Dora Akunyili and Mr Labaran Maku were all absent.

Except for the Vice President and the Ondo State Governor, Olusegun Mimiko who made it to the venue of the event, which beamed live by the Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, it would have been marred by lack dignitaries, as media chief executives in both the public and private sector were also conspicuously absent.

Sambo, in an address, announced that the federal government has earmarked the sum of N1.3 trillion to be spent to equip the police in the next five years to checkmate insecurity activities in the country like armed robbery, kidnapping and the likes.

While reiterating government’s commitment to journalist security and press freedom, he said recent development in the country has further heightened the anxiety in the country hence the need for the issue of security to be taken seriously.

However, the Vice President, urged journalists to remain the watch dog of the society describing the profession as a unique and beautiful though laced with hazards, adding that journalists have influence that can either be good or bad hence the need for them to be fair, truthful, objective as well as security conscious and patriotic in their reportage.

He assured of commitment of the President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration to conduct free and fair elections next year.

In his remark, the Chief Presenter at the occasion and Governor of Ondo State, Dr Olusegun Mimiko, who donated N10 million to NUJ as well as pay one year premium for all the registered journalists in his state, said the scheme was an eternal shame to those who want to try to muscle the press in the country.

He said the scheme was long overdue especially in the face of low pay and lack of motivation in the media industry despite the fact that they are exposed to high hazard in the cause of practicing journalism.

Mimiko who commended the federal government’s role in curbing kidnapping especially in the South East to which some journalists were victims earlier in the year, said “we owe it a duty to initiate schemes like this one in the face of hazards of the profession which has resulted in deaths of journalists in the cause of doing their jobs.

“Nigerian journalists deserve good living wages and that is why we have paid compensation to the families of the two journalists that died earlier this year in Ondo State and have continued to take care of them.

Journalists deserve security in the place of work even in the ongoing fight for credible elections next year, journalists have remained at the forefront. The President wanting a credible election does not necessarily translate to others wanting credible elections and that is journalists must remain at the forefront of the fight”, he said.

Mimiko recalled the role of journalists in the era of do or die politics, while praying that such never happen again, the Governor however lamented the non-passage of the Freedom of Information Bill remains a clog in the wheel of progress to access to information.