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Journalists tasked on rural devt.

THERE is an urgent need for journalists in the country to champion the cause of development in the rural areas, a frontline academician has stressed.

Professor Akin Mabogunje, Chairman of the Foundation for Development and Environmental Initiatives (FDEI), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), made the assertion in Owerri, Imo State.
Delivering a lecture at a meeting of the Nigeria Guild of Editors, Mabogunje called on the Federal and State Governments to establish Media Research Centres to give the mass media an opportunity to monitor happenings in the rural areas.

``This will ensure that information about what is happening in the rural areas is given at least some attention besides the urban-oriented gamut of news items,'' he said.

He also called on the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the Nigerian Institute of Journalists (NIJ), to set up programmes that would equip journalists to review or comment on happenings in the rural areas.
For instance, he said, ``The mass media should champion the cause, during the forthcoming constitutional review for a more responsible and responsive local government system.''

On the land reform programmes of governments in the country, he noted that ''without a system in which farmers too could have title to their land, their poverty status can not be changed.''.
He stressed the importance of mobilising the people to form cooperative societies.
Mabogunje said that with such cooperatives, the rural population can be mobilised through provision of a robust financial opportunity.

``For development to be accelerated in the rural areas, the media must help in spreading information about best practices in different areas of rural and agricultural development.
``There is nothing unachievable about this aspiration with a positive, though not
uncritical media,'' Mabogunje said.