WITH DAN AGBESE

OMBUDSMAN

lawmakers would be willing to add to their heavy duty as lawmakers the rather messy job of castrating rapists in the state. At the time, they were considering a bill that provides castration as the appropriate punishment for convicted rapists. They have since passed the bill into law.

Photographs are important to newspapers. They may stand alone or accompany stories to further authenticate them. If they accompany stories, they must be seen to be relevant. If they stand alone, they must be seen to tell a full story on their own. The photograph spread across three columns on page 37 of the July 15 issue of the Daily Trust is a stand-alone photograph that fell short of telling the story. Here is the caption to the photograph: “Sri Lankan national arrested by officers of the Nigerian Navy attached to BEECROFT for dealing in stolen crude.” There are seven men, all of them with the perfect picture of people in trouble, in the photograph. All of them look like Sri Lankans to me. Are we talking of one or of five Sri Lankans here? If one, he should have been identified; if all of them, each of them should have been identified.

Covid-19 is an economic leveller but it also offers people opportunities for a creative use of their time to survive the rough times. I doff my cap to Sokoto teachers who have taken to farming. The Daily Trust of July 15, page 26 tells us that “Sokoto teachers turn to farm to survive covid-19.” What they did was to “turn to farming.”

I end this column with what I consider the most illiterate reportage found on page 22 of the Daily Trust issue of July 22. The headline is: “Nasarawa community where vigilantes reign supreme.” The second paragraph reads: “The community which is predominantly occupied by native Gbagyi people has others from different cultural backgrounds from all over Nigeria.”