Ekpu tasks media on providing insight in time of crisis
By Ibidunni Banjoko
Chief Executive Officer, MayFive Media Limited, Mr. Ray Ekpu has urged the media to throw up ideas on how Nigeria’s multifarious problems can be solved.
He disclosed this in his address at the 17th All Nigeria Editors Conference, organised by the Nigerian Guild of Editors which was held in Abuja recently.
Speaking on the theme of the conference, “Media in Times of Crisis: Resolving Conflict, Achieving Consensus”, Ekpu said it is appropriate that the Nigerian Guild of Editors has chosen to beam the searchlight on the “major issues that our beloved nation is grappling with today”.
According to him, “these issues are multi-faceted, interrelated and complex and are proving difficult to resolve because of our ethnic, regional and cultural idiosyncrasies as well as the lack of political will by the ruling elite. Since the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world in the last quarter of 2019 unexpectedly, our lives as individuals and as a nation have been turned upside down because it is an ailment for which no one has yet found the cure”.
He further said: “The situation has been compounded by the naysayers, the Doubting Thomas, among us. They tell us that Covid-19 does not exist and that if it exists, it does not kill, and if it is capable of killing, the heat in Africa will kill it.”
He averred that, remarks like these have sowed seeds of doubt in our people despite the efforts made by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to lead the world properly, scientifically, on the matter. “This pandemic has compounded our health situation which was not at its lowest ebb in the first place.
“Government’s inability to meet the needs of our medical personnel has led to a long strike and an exodus of some of our doctors and paramedical personnel to foreign countries in search of greener pastures. This brain drain will hurt us immeasurably. Now the Federal Government has to insist that its civil servants must take the jab even though some of our people are still not fully convinced about the efficacy of the vaccine.
“I believe it is better for the government to seek to persuade people to be vaccinated than to use force because each person is personally responsible for his own health or the lack of it. While we were grappling with the pandemic our educational system stayed locked down. That posed a major challenge, the challenge of resorting to educating our kids by other means which we were not ready for. Even now many of our educational institutions are not fully functional because some parents are holding back their kids for they are worried about the possibility of their children being infected at school. In these matters there are no easy solutions but solutions we must find.”
Commenting on the economy, Ekpu noted that “the cost of food and other essentials has gone skywards; our debt servicing burden has increased; there has been a sharp fall in the value of the naira; the funds spent on petroleum products subsidy has gone up because the price of crude oil is up and we import the bulk of the petroleum products consumed in this country.”
He also dwelt on the incapability of the governments to solve the existential problems of the country.
“I urge our editors to throw up various ideas on how these multifarious problems that hobble our nation can be resolved so that our country can be restored to good health,” he asserted.
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