States position
The Kwara State Police Command, Wednesday, January 30, 2019 released a statement alleging undue sensationalism of the lead story of our Monday edition.
The statement which was signed and released by the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) in the state, DSP Ajayi Okasanmi with the title; ‘Undue sensationalisation of cases under police investigation’ apparently singled out National Pilot for attack.
The statement reads in parts, “It is very embarrassing and unacceptable when a Newspaper throws the ethics and practice of professional journalism into the winds with the way unverified news are released for public consumption in order to score a political point thereby misinforming the public”.
For the records, the complaint of the police originated from the lead story published by this medium on Monday 28/1/2019 with the headline, ‘Kwara APC chieftain in police net over ritual murder of 6-yr-old boy’.
Ordinarily we would not have joined issues with the police because of the robust and cordial relationship between the two organisations in combating crime and criminality in the state.
We have always identified with the police and various heads of the command before now have had cause to commend our style of reportage while also identifying National Pilot as one of the most professionally run media in the state.
It is also on record that we are one of the few media houses that had paid solidarity visit to the Police command in recent times.
However, we are constrained to react to the police allegation and what we perceived to be a threat to the performance of our lawful and constitutional responsibility.
National Pilot has been a very responsible news organisation and we have carried out our duty with strict adherence to our professional ethics. In publishing our stories, we have always been meticulous and painstaking which can be attested to by the PPRO who we always reach out to in order to validate our story and for balancing. Such tradition to go beyond the ordinary report has won the newspaper several awards in the state and beyond including the best read and highest selling newspaper in Kwara.
The reaction of the police on the said story came to us as a shock because the motive was never to cause political tension or security breach in the first place.
As a socially responsible publication that is held in public trust, we have continued to play our parts in ensuring free, fair and credible polls devoid of violence and insecurity in 2019. In line with this, we remain the only newspaper in the entire country that has permanently carried a front page free advert; “Kwarans Say NO To Electoral Violence”.
As regards the story, we made our findings as we have always done to unravel the identity of the suspect and in the cause of that investigation, it was discovered that he is an active member of a leading political party in the state.
Our reporter on Sunday, January 27, 2019, reached out to the PPRO on the telephone and he confirmed the suspect’s arrest but added that he was not aware of him being a member of any political party.
The police spokesman who also confirmed the death of the victim said, “I learnt that a boy was declared missing along Tanke area and the people later discovered him in one house at Tanke and rescued him to the hospital but he later died.
“The suspect has been arrested and currently undergoing investigation and if found guilty, he will be charged to court. But we are not aware whether he is a member of any political party. This is an alleged crime and we are investigating it,” he divulged.
For emphasis, the operations of the police and the way we go about our job is slightly different. While the police investigate criminal acts, ours is to report the act and we have always followed the ethics of journalism in doing that. Our readers and the society at large want to know the identity, social status and possibly the political affiliation of the subject of our report which is the norm all over the world. It was never done with any ulterior motive or breach of professional ethics. For instance, if a member of a prominent family is involved in a crime, it is the name of the family that will be used to launch the story. That is the norm. How such story is perceived or labelled resides with individual reader. And for the records, sensationalism is not unethical in journalism.
On this particular story, a member of the party in the suspect’s Pakunma ward in Moro local government with the name Hon Rasaq Amori confirmed he was an active member of the political party which has not been denied by the said party. We therefore wonder where the issue of falsehood raised by the police emanated from.
The police statement further said, “another online news media associated to the same newspaper (National Pilot) carried another report that ‘Another APC chieftain arrested in Kwara by the police with 300 PVCs’.
This is far from the truth as National Pilot never reported such story. Although, we heard about the report but we decided to drop the story after the PPRO had said he was not aware of any such arrest when our reporter sought to confirm its veracity from him.
We wish to restate here that neither was the story of the ‘APC chieftain allegedly arrested in Kwara with 300 PVCs’ reported in our publication nor our website.
Also, National Pilot has no link with any online platform beyond our website and social media pages.
The text message that was sent to the PPRO by our reporter over the story and his response is hereby reproduced:
National Pilot: “We learnt that a man was arrested by police with 300 PVCs and currently at police custody facing interrogation. We also learnt that they have been pressurising CP for the suspect’s release. Please I need your reaction, sir.”
