By Gabriel Ewepu

ABUJA – AS a lot of challenges plague Nigerians, a nonprofit organisation, Africa Polling Institute, API, has embarked on building the capacity of journalists on promoting social cohesion as a panacea to the issues contending with the well-being of the nation.

Speaking on the sidelines of the ‘Capacity Building Workshop on Equipping Policy Executives and Media Practitioners as Champions of Social Cohesion’, organised by API, and funded by Ford Foundation, the Executive Director, API, Prof Bell Ihua, explained that the essence of the workshop is to make policy executives and media practitioners understand what social cohesion is all about and how they can use their position in the Constitution to drive it to ensure it influences policy decisions by those in government for the benefit of Nigerians.

Ihua said since 2019, API has been measuring social cohesion, and this is its fifth edition; he also added that the training became imperative to build the capacity of “the burden bearers who are journalists and policy planners.”

He continued, “So imagine that policy makers understand the meaning and appreciate the essence of social cohesion, to go a long way to imputing social cohesion into policy design, into policy implementation, as well as policy review, and journalists on their own, the more they understand the concept of social cohesion, the better they can appreciate it in their storytelling, narratives they put out, in the reportage that they put into the public. 

“So it is important to train this group of people, and that is why we organised this workshop with the support of the Ford Foundation.”

Meanwhile, the API boss said from his assessment more needs to be done in reportage in the media space.

“Well, so far the evidence shows that a lot more needs to be done to build a cohesive reportage of news.

“For example, a lot more needs to be done in terms of helping Nigeria build a national identity, helping Nigeria promote trust, trust towards the government, trust towards fellow citizens. 

“A lot more has to be done towards the promotion of social justice, civic participation, and other indicators of social cohesion. So a lot needs to be done”, he added.

A facilitator at the workshop and lecturer of Journalism and Media Studies at Veritas University, Dr Obiora Chukwumba, said at this point in Nigeria’s unity and progress, the media must use its tools “to look back, reflect, and actually using storytelling, using reporters, using editorial framing, and so on, to actually engage members of the public in ways that reassure and build trust.”

He also urged journalists participating at the workshop and training to “actually recognize that you have a fundamental role in making sure that those national objectives that we talk about in our constitution, that you actually have a role to making sure that it’s not only the government that the national objectives are meant for, to make sure that the media has a frontal role in achieving those national objectives.” 

Speaking on reporting about the 2027 general elections, he (Chukwumba) tasked the media with fact-checking and accurate reportage instead of heating the polity with reports that could jeopardise the electoral process.

“Campaigns will be coming; you will see a whole lot of misinformation in the public space, but the tool of fact-checking is also available to the journalists”, he said.

Meanwhile, also a facilitator and a Development Communication Practitioner at the training workshop, Odoh Diego Okeyondo, stressed the need for journalists to focus more on the people to drive social cohesion, “My key for journalism and journalists is that you should focus on the human being. 

“When you try to speak to human beings more and take their perspectives, your story gets a balance; your story gets improved social cohesion because often what I see about our practice as journalists is that we are relying so much on either releases or we are relying on the release of government. 

“But bring that perspective to hear from the people, and you are going to see a completely new story entirely.”