Kwara State House of Assembly speaker Barr, Razak Atunwa yesterday said as the 2015 general election inches nearer, journalists should shun inducement and enticement from politicians.

He stated this during a capacity building workshop to mark the 2014 World Press Freedom Day organised by the Kwara state council of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ). 

According to Atunwa, with the election year coming, media practitioners would face threat and intimidation from politicians to color or manipulate their reports, adding that rather than succumb to threats and intimidation by politicians, they should remain objective and uphold the ethics of the profession.

 As we are approaching the 2015 elections, there would be pressure to induce and encourage journalists to skew their reports and color them to suit certain individuals. There would be threat also on journalists and media practitioners. I want to encourage you to resist such threat, encouragement and enticement”, he said, warning that society would be badly hurt if journalists should fall victims of threat and intimidation”, he said.

Atunwa, who noted that free press is the only way the society, can experience good governance, tasked journalists to let the truth be their guiding principle. He expressed dismay that Nigerian journalists had become docile in holding government accountable to the people charged them not to be subservient to any government.