• Akagbogu Photo: Sun News Publishing

Mores Stories on this Section

If the people who are saddled with surveillance, accessing and disseminating information to the public think that the passage of the Freedom of Information Bill, would provide easy access to information, they need a rethink. This is the view of Barrister Emeka Akagbogu, publisher of Maritime Nigeria magazine.

The magazine is a bi-monthly magazine, which focuses on happenings in the maritime, oil and gas industry.

Writing as a hobby
I started writing in my secondary school days. Then, in our school press club we had a magazine and I wrote for the magazine. In my university days too, in our faculty, we had a magazine called Esquire or something like that, I wrote for the magazine. In secondary school, I wrote many essays and represented my school in essay competitions. I won quite a number of honours, both at the state and national levels.

Going into journalism
Well, I wouldn’t say I vied into journalism, I still practice law. I practice law with focus on maritime and oil and gas. I also consult for the industry. I conduct training programmes too for the industry. Indeed, my involvement in journalism is only part of the series of things we do for the maritime industry. The fact is that because we decided to do our publication at a higher level and at the highest quality, many people assume that is the only thing I do. It is just one out of the several things I do.
Strictly speaking, because I am involved in the maritime industry, I know that published materials are hard to come by.

I discovered that in cases where one comes by them, it is discovered that they are largely of low quality. I believe that the only way to contribute to the maritime industry, to develop it and to ensure that it grows is to ensure that there is increased knowledge of the industry and its related sectors. This is because knowledge capital is the most important capital, which the industry needs. That is why I decided to publish something, which will meet the need at this time.

Nigeria media
I think the Nigerian media has been growing speedily since the 80s, particularly the independent media. I believe the media is only as good as it can be independent. We have witnessed a lot of independent revolutionary publishers and writers who are not afraid to speak their minds. That has really helped the media. I’ll equally say that the period of military rule enabled some measure of independence. The civilian administration has equally encouraged that. I think there’s still a long way until we get the full independence of media that is necessary.

Freedom of Information Bill
It could go a long way in giving the media more independence. Let me add that it can only go as far as media stakeholders could take it. I can assure you that even when the bill is passed, the people who withhold information will still withhold information. The existence of the media right act, if it becomes that, will not automatically open the door to access information. What will ensure access to information that is needed at every point in time, will be the insistence of the media on utilizing the legal face that has been given.

We can only do that when the time comes by challenging refusal of access to information in the court of law. And we’ve got to do that consistently. It’s only then that we can begin to witness an institutionalization of the access to information, which we desire.

Challenges
There are a couple of challenges. I’ll speak about challenge in accessing information and that of processing the information we have for the public. Access to information is important, particularly, when we are dealing with government and its establishments, which ordinarily should be interested in ensuring that things are happening in the public domain. There’s a big challenge there.

I was once talking with someone in a government establishment, who was keen to give harmless information. At a point, after he had virtually finished the interview, he said, had forgotten to seek permission from his boss before talking to me and that if his boss hears that he granted the interview, he may be sanctioned or even lose his job. He immediately called his boss, but the boss flatly refused that he spoke to us. There was no reason for his boss to have refused.

In respect of publishing, power supply is a big problem. We don’t have the kind of power supply needed to push out the materials. Secondly, for those of us who do not have press and who use third party press, the problem of quality printing is a big challenge. Most of the time, we have to take our magazine to print outside the country. We go to South Africa; we go to some parts of the Middle East – Lebanon and Israel. We have to have to do that to meet the kind of quality of publication we want and this is usually at a great cost.

There are a few people locally who are able to offer such services, but their rates are astronomical. We print direct imaging and this costs a lot of money, but it comes out good. If you want to give only the best, you have to go the extra mile. If we could have more investments in printing presses locally, this could bring prices down and will help us a lot.

Another challenge is that of staffing. One key problem is getting good staff. When I say good staff, I mean people who have been properly trained in the ethics and practice of journalism; people who have an eye, nose and ear for good stories, people who are able to put together the kind of materials you want to read.

Journalistic qualities
Good staffing is the most important step to getting a good publication. Some journalists write well; they have good prosaic skills, so they can write good prose. But they are unable to put down what they are writing in proper perspective. When you’re unable to put down what you are writing in proper perspective, the tendency is that you may ramble.

A journalist may have the ability to put issues in proper perspective but his writing skills will be suspect. That’s another issue. Again, you may have the skill, but your investigative ability is poor. A good journalist should combine all these, so that you can, within a small space, give excellent information.