Rivers State Governor Amopusenibo Siminialayi Fubara has been honoured with the Champion of Peace award by the Rivers State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
National President of NUJ, Chief Christopher Ikechukwu Isiguzo, made this known during an awards night ceremony in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital to mark the end of the union’s 2024 press week.
Rivers State Commissioner for Information and Communications, Warisenibo Joseph Johnson, who represented the governor at the event, commended journalists for their neutrality and exhibition of professionalism in their reportage during the period of political upheavals in Rivers, which contributed to the stability, confidence and focus in providing good governance in the state.
Johnson, who commended journalists in Rivers State for maintaining a neutral stance in the face of the political tension and turmoil that the state had been embroiled in maintained that it was the show of neutrality and professionalism of journalists in the State that did not allow the political situation to be blown out of proportion.
He said: “The situation we find ourselves in Rivers State is such that one would have expected that the media would have been divided, but the media professionals exhibited maturity in their reportage of events and development in the state.
The Commissioner, who was chairman of the occasion, congratulated journalists who were given awards by the union and reminded them to see the honour as a call to higher service, while charging those yet to be so honoured to be more committed to their assignments, adding: “People are watching you.
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Earlier, Isiguzo, who said: Our nation is at a critical juncture where the values of transparency and accountability and the rule of law must be upheld with greater vigilance,” advised journalists never to take their task of informing members of the public and shaping public opinion lightly.
Isiguzo added that in the past few years, Nigeria has witnessed socio-economic and political challenges and changes that have tested the resilience of its democratic institutions and urged the media to rise to the occasion of setting an enduring agenda in the interest of democracy and stability of the country.
Speaking, state Chairman of NUJ, Stanley Job Stanley, who commended the Rivers State Government under the leadership of Sir Siminialayi Fubara for promptly coming to the aid of the union to make the 2024 press week possible, said it has been a tradition the union has not had in the past five years, adding that it is a rejuvenation and a sign of better days ahead for journalists in the state.
Some past and present commissioners in the state, captains of the media industry, journalists and their families and friends, who attended the ceremony, witnessed different categories of awards, including the one bestowed on Governor Fubara as the most peaceful governor in the country.
