Columnists urge Nigerians to reclaim Nigeria

As 2019 draws near and election drums roll in, Nigerians have been urged to reclaim the country from the hands of bad leadership, greedy politicians and all who are determined to run the country aground.

The charge was made at the unveiling of the League of Nigerian Columnists (LNC) held on Thursday at CIAPS in Ikeja, Lagos. The event brought together leading columnists across Nigeria.

They linked the progress of Nigeria to reading culture of its populace, saying “Not only would the league make its position, it will continue to drum to the ears of leaders that their powers are held in trust for the people to whom we are mandatory responsible”.

“To recover the country Nigerians must recover the appetites for reading. You lose a country when you refuse to have a say in it; and this happens when you refuse to read. How does one recover our country, it is by being informed through informed writings as expressed by public commentators, such the columnists,” observed Dare Babarinsa, one of Nigeria’s top columnists. “To recover our country”.

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Bearing the statement in mind, and with the need of attaining the goal of holding governments accountable to the people as enshrined in the Constitution, LNC National President Akogun Tola Adeniyi said, columnists across the country came together to form the league.

According to him, at critical and crucial moments the league will be making its position known as they “continue to drum to the ears of leaders that their powers are held in trust for the people to whom we are mandatorily responsible”. And although some may write them off as “people who scribble on the backs of advertisements, Adeniyi noted that “there are very few of those that carry as much influence as the challenging publish–and-be-damned columnist”.

“LNC which we are unveiling today is a non-partisan, voluntary association of responsible and respectable columnists dedicated to the nurturing and preservation of a truly democratic and progressive society.

“We promise the Nigerian peoples that we shall dedicate our energies, our talents, our resources to the betterment of the citizenry through continuous and rigorous interrogation of the powers that be and all institutional leaders of the country. It is our belief that the pen that we have and the influence we may wield are for the service of humanity,” he said.