Vice President Kashim Shettima has implored media professionals in Nigeria to be more focused on objectively speaking truth to power rather than antagonising the government.
Drawing the distinction between antagonism and speaking truth to power, he also urged members of the fourth estate of the realm to, as a matter of necessity, always strive to strike a balance between their allegiance to self and to truth.
Shettima who gave the charge during the public presentation of the book, “Persona Non Grata,” authored by a journalist, Ismail Omipidan, at the Ladi Kwali Hall of the Abuja Continental Hotel, in a statement by his spokesman, Stanley Nkwocha, said the goal must hinge on serving a greater good and a deserving humanity.
“What must be spelt out is that there is a distinction between antagonising a government and speaking truth to power. The latter is driven by a noble principle to serve a greater good and a deserving humanity. The former, on the other hand, is usually a self-serving exercise that fades into futility, and that is not the end we should aspire to achieve with the information and ideas we labour to acquire and process in our line of work,” he stated.
Taking a leaf from “The Republic,” a Socratic dialogue, written by the Greek Philosopher, Plato, the vice president pointed out that to really build a nation that can best be described as an ideal state, the intellectual class, especially the journalists, must be allowed to be the nation’s conscience.
He told journalists that apart from speaking truth to power, the nation also needs them, as media professionals, to serve as the country’s conscience.
