Media Certification Board to Licence Journalists in Nigeria

Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja

The Nigeria Press Council (NPC) has proposed an amendment to the Act Establishing the NPC to substitute its name and function to be replaced with another organisation known as the Media Certification Board (MCB).

The Executive Secretary  of NPC, Mr Francis Nwosu, canvassed the change yesterday when the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mr Mohammed Idris, visited the NPC secretariat in Abuja. He said the MCB would be responsible for the registration of all journalists in print, broadcast and online platforms in the industry so long as they  have journalism training and background.

“So long as you have journalism training and background you will be listed by the board as a practitioner. With that registration, we hope to have an industry that is both ethically and purely professional.

 “We can do that in my thinking, by upgrading the Nigeria Institute of Journalism (NIJ) in Lagos and the International Journalism Institute, Abuja, as  clearing houses for all journalism graduates in Nigeria,” Nwosu, a fellow of the Nigerian Guild of Editors said.

He said practitioners who spend three or four years studying Mass Communication or Journalism would now go to NIJ or IJI for six months or nine months to graduate in journalism.

“The MCB will then licence you to practise and come into the profession at a ceremony where they will all register and are documented and a licence is issued for them to practise as journalists.

“The idea is to create a profession under the MCB. Those licences will be renewable at a time agreed by the Nigeria Press Organisation (NPO) at an agreed date and time for the renewal of practising licences.

“The same applies to newspapers and magazines and publishers to take in some recommendations that the industry may prescribe. So all media workers and media institutions will have a registration board to be controlled by the MCB and pay some money that goes to the maintenance of the NPC so it can generate its own fund and run its own affairs exclusive of government control and funding,” Nwosu said.

He added that all the functions as currently spelt out in the Nigeria Press Council Act would be transmitted to the MCB to do the same thing as suggested except the NPO, “who are owners of the print media in Nigeria, will think otherwise or make any amendment.”

He told the minister that the idea was open for further debate and discussion by members of the industry, adding the most important thing was the survival of the NPC, “even if it doesn’t go by the same name and character it should be by the name of MCB for all journalists, to be owned exclusively by journalists  and journalism industry and not government as NPC stakeholders don’t want to hear the word regulation.”