CPS lauds NUJ Nasarawa State Council for uniting members

Mr Ibrahim Addra, the New Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to Gov. Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State has commended the Nasarawa State Council of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) for uniting members in the state.

He gave the commendation in Lafia on Monday during a familiarisation visit to State Executive Council (SEC) members of the NUJ at the Press Centre, Lafia.

According to him, the step taken by NUJ toward uniting the members of the Correspondents’ Chapel is commendable and should be sustained to ensure that journalists are truly united in the interest of the profession.

Addra also sought for partnership with journalists to succeed in projecting the activities of the government.

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He said the reason for the visit was to seek partnership with journalists in providing adequate and objective coverage of the activities of the state government for public consumption.

“The reason for this visit, besides interacting and seeing my colleagues, is to seek your partnership and collaboration.

“A lot of you have offered to assist me to succeed individually but I come to interact with you as a union, because if I fail in this job, one way or the other, I feel my colleagues will also be blamed,” he said.

Addra said the governor had already demonstrated goodwill to work with journalists by appointing some journalists into key positions in the administration.

He gave an assurance to operate an open-door policy where all journalists could have free and direct access to him for any clarification that would help them in doing their job.

He appealed to journalists to always adhere to the ethics of the profession by always being objective and ensure they balance their reports in the overall interest of the state.

Addra, however, said as watchdogs of the society, journalists could criticise the government but it should be constructive, truthful and factual with the view of influencing the government to perform better.

Responding, Salihu Alkali, Nasarawa NUJ Chairman, thanked the chief press secretary for the visit.

Alkali gave an assurance of the complete support of the entire journalists in the state toward projecting the activities of the government.

“We believe in partnership for the overall development of the state.

“We want to assure you and the state government that we will work hard in line with our professional ethics to project the activities of the state government,’’ he said.

The NUJ boss appealed to the chief press secretary to always carry journalists along and support them where necessary to help them carry out their duties efficiently.

“We have a lot of needs at the Press Centre ranging from welfare issues, lack of electricity, security at the centre, training and retaining of members, among others and we want the government to assist,’’ Alkali said. (NAN).