The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, has charged journalists covering the National Assembly to raise the bar for parliamentary journalism and set the standard for legislative reporting in Nigeria.
Akpabio gave the charge on Monday at the 2026 Capacity-Building Workshop organised by the Senate Press Corps, urging reporters to acquire a firm knowledge of the Constitution and the rules governing the institution they cover.
Represented by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Yemi Adaramodu, the President of the Senate said the theme of the workshop, “Leveraging Legislative Oversight and Media Collaboration to Safeguard the National Budget from Unlawful Insertions,” was central to the principles of representative government.
He said, “Parliament must gauge the public purse, the press must illuminate the public record and both must answer to the Nigerian people from whom all public authority comes.”
Akpabio urged parliamentary journalists to uphold accuracy, depth and professionalism, noting that the nature of legislative reporting demanded thoroughness and caution.
According to him, while sensational claims often attract immediate attention, careful corrections and factual reporting may receive far less publicity.
“Nigeria needs reporting strong enough to withstand scrutiny. We face real hardships and disagreements, and the public deserves facts that help us confront them,” he said.
He added that exposing failures could be a form of national service, just as journalists had a responsibility to resist presenting conjecture as fact.
“Patriotism asks us both to tell the truth about our country and to care what happens to it,” he said.
The workshop featured paper presentations by the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Atiku Bagudu; Director of BudgIT, Mr Oluseun Onigbinde; Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Mallam Auwal Musa Rafsanjani; and Publisher of Eagle Times Newspaper, Mr Ikechukwu Chukwunyere.