Nigerian President Mohammadu Buhari (C) answers journalists’ questions during his first presidential media chat in Abuja, on December 30, 2015. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday said he had no new intelligence on the whereabouts of more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped almost two years ago, and that his government was ready to negotiate with any ‘credible leadership’ of Boko Haram to secure their release. / AFP / SUNDAY AGHAEZEIt was the same sorrowful story for already impoverished Nigerian journalists during this May Day celebration. Many journalists, as has been the case for many years, are still being owed many months of unpaid salaries. And they are not expected to write about it or talk about it in public, an attitude described by some as the worst form of hypocrisy, especially because they often publish screaming headlines about unpaid wages to government workers.
Apart from being given meagre cheques for the work they are expected to do in Africa’s most populous nation, many Nigerian journalists have not been paid for many months. Many of them are not insured and families of those who fell on duty are often abandoned, left to fend for themselves.
The story did not change this year. And while they often report about workers who have not been paid by state and federal governments, they are often expected to remain quiet about their own miserable conditions.
As a result, many journalists have resorted to demanding and accepting bribes from their leaders, a set of corrupt individuals who steal all they can and give a small slice to those who are meant to watch their actions, leaving the country in total chaos full of squalor and hopelessness.