The International Press Centre (IPC), Lagos-Nigeria, has announced the formal release of the report of its Nigerian Election Media Support Program, implemented in partnership with the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.
Director of IPC, Mr. Lanre Arogundade said in a statement yesterday that the major highlight of the 45-page report is the documentation of all the promises made by President Goodluck Jonathan, as the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), during the campaigns between February and March, 2011.
Mr. Arogundade said ninety-one (91) campaign promises were documented under thirteen subtitles including infrastructural development, power, economy, energy and gas and security. Others are agriculture, education, women, water resources, mineral resources, national question, reforms and Niger-Delta.
The campaign promises were sourced from the February and March 2011 editions of Daily Trust, Champion, Punch, Thisday, Vanguard and The Guardian newspapers; the February and March 2011 editions of The News, Tell and Newswatch magazines; the transcript of Goodluck Jonathan lone TV debate as obtained from the African Independent Television (AIT) and the inaugural Presidential address of Goodluck Jonathan.
“The media, the civil society and the ordinary citizens now have a unique opportunity to hold the President accountable by monitoring the implementation of the promises he freely made to the electorate during the 2011 election campaigns and come up with relevant score sheets by the end of his tenure”, Mr. Arogundade said.
The statement said the report also documents the experiences of Nigerian journalists caught in the post-presidential election violence in northern Nigeria in addition to a comprehensive overview of other activities including training workshops for journalists on election reporting skills, conflict sensitive election reporting, radio reporting and the operation of an election news agency - the Nigerian Election News Reports (NENR).
Mr. Arogundade said IPC and IWPR particularly cherish the experience of using the highly innovative Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology, which was being applied in an African country media program for the first time, to run the NENR as an independent election news agency. NENR reports were available online as text and audio at www.nigerianelectionnewsreport.com and broadcast on the mobile phones of almost 2000 journalists on the IPC database between April and June 2011.
Titled ‘fair media, fair politics’, the Nigerian Election Media Support Program was supported of USAID, UKaid and the International Republican Institute (IRI).
Excerpts of the report containing the President’s campaign promises are attached while the full report can be accessed online at www.ipcngorg. Hard copies of the report are also available at IPC’s office in Lagos.
Stella Nwofia
Program Officer, IPC
Tel: + 234 (0)8020359629
Email: stellanwofia@ipcng.org; admin@ipcng.org |
