By Donald Iorchir
Federal Capital Territory (FCT) chairman of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Comrade Paul Elams Abeshi, has promised to reposition the union in the Territory to enable it to regain its public respect and better recognition that would serve the members better.
Abeshi vowed to work assiduously to redeem the public image of journalists in the territory, stressing that he would move the profession forward in a manner that would attract “unrestricted acceptance and respectability.”
The chairman, who spoke to newsmen, regretted that the profession had been “sadly infiltrated by desperate charlatans who parade themselves in the FCT as journalists, but use the respectable media platform to dupe unsuspecting members of the public, thereby creating bad image for genuine practitioners.”
He said “a high-power committee of practising journalists has been set up to deal more decisively with the issues of quackery and part of its work will be to properly identify bonafide practitioners and separate them from impostors who embarrass the union at public events with their conduct,” pointing out that the union “is aware of the nefarious activities of the quacks.”
He also promised to vigorously pursue the completion of the abandoned NUJ secretariat this year, disclosing that the project had been captured in the 2017 Budget of the Federal Capital Territory Administration, which awarded the contract during the last administration.
“We invited the current Minister of the FCT, Malam Muhamad Musa Bello, to the Secretariat and when he came, he promised that the amount required to complete the multi-million naira four-storey building project will be captured in this year’s budget of the FCT.”
