From Tony Osauzo, Benin
Edo State Deputy Governor Philip Shaibu has instituted three annual awards for practising journalists in the state.
The awards, Best Investigative Journalist of the Year, Best Reporter of the Year and Best Journalist of the Year, all have a prize of N500,000 and a trophy attached to each of them.
The deputy governor, who announced the institution of the awards during his annual hosting of journalists, said they would be presented during next year hosting on December 20, 2022.
He said but for journalists who cried out that other persons were left behind in Gashua Prison after the military government claimed to have freed all those detained, he would not have been alive to become the deputy governor.
He explained that the annual hosting of journalists, for him, is ‘about sharing and for you to recognise your role”, adding that democracy without the media is no democracy.
‘The media is the catalyst, the media mirrors the society, journalists need to balance their reports,’ Shaibu added, urging the media to see government as partners in progress.
Earlier, the newly elected Chairman of the Edo State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Mr Festus Aalenkhe, called on the Edo State Government to partner with journalists by investing in the State Council, just as he solicited the government to power the Secretariat of the NUJ from its Oshiomo Power Station.