Professional journalists who have taken to online publishing in Nigeria have resolved to boycott the activities of political parties in Nigeria with immediate effect.
The online publishers who met in Lagos on Saturday to review the activities of political parties in relation to advert patronage rose with the conclusion that campaign organisations of the political parties have deliberately diverted advertising funds meant for online news platforms in the country.
This was a situation they roundly condemned and called on all news publishing online platforms in the country to shun all party related activities until the abnormally is addressed.
The publishers expressed disgust at the gimmick of the campaign organisations to use the advertisement streaming platforms of Google and other third party advertisement streaming organisations, which pay little or nothing for it, instead of dealing directly with the Nigerian publishers who are creating jobs for millions of Nigerians in the online industry.
As part of measures to give verve to its resolve, the online publishers unanimously agreed to immediately block all online political advertisements with foreign inputs on their respective websites.
The implication of this directive, is that, all political adverts that come through Google Adsense, PressAds or any other means that are not directly negotiated with the online publishers have been effectively disabled on the various web platforms.
The publishers gathered that one of the two major political parties in the country had budgeted not less than N150 million for online advertisement campaign, but till date, no credible online news website has indicated it had benefitted from the N150 million advertisement campaign fund.
The Deputy Director General of one of the campaign organisations told an online publisher at the Presidential Villa in Abuja recently that approval had been given and money released for the party’s advertisement campaign on credible news websites but expressed surprise that the money had been diverted.
This is apart from the millions of naira budgeted for media relations.
Aside from streaming political advertisements through third parties on the news websites, thus creating the impression that advertisements had been given, what some of those involved in the campaigns themselves had done was to quickly open phoney news websites and diverted the funds for the advertisement campaign into private pockets.
It was in the light of these revelations that the online publishers decided to, with immediate effect, boycott the activities of the political parties, some of which “dump” press statements on the online news websites as early as 6am and send as many as 10 of such releases in a day.
The publishers condemned the attitude of campaign managers of the various political parties for treating online media organisations with little regards, warning that as a business organisation, they would going forward, ensure that their operations are strictly guided by professionalism and the economic survival of their various businesses.
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