Mr Buki Ponle, Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), has appealed to the National Assembly to amend the Act establishing the agency.
Ponle made the appeal on Thursday in Abuja at a ceremony to immortalise the agency’s late Managing Director, Malam Wada Maida.
The NAN headquarters in Abuja was named ‘Malam Wada Maida House’ at the ceremony attended by top dignitaries including the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed and Gov. Aminu Masari of Katsina State.
He described the 45-year-old Act as “constituting another set of hindrance to some extent, and requiring urgent surgical amendment.
“We are, therefore, appealing to relevant stakeholders, especially the National Assembly, to bail us out of this quagmire.’’
On Maida, Ponle noted that the story of NAN was incomplete without the late former managing director.
According to him, Maida’s contributions to the growth, survival and development of the agency remain immeasurable.
“Indeed, it is rare to find a man or woman, who stood tenaciously by a course spanning more than four decades as our dear Wada Maida.’’
Ponle described him as an iconic and visionary journalist of character.
He also described the late Maida as a simple, thorough and straight forward man, who positively changed the course of destinies of many of his colleagues in and outside NAN.
“Man’s existentialism is noteworthy not only by the acquisition of material wealth or by his political conquest, but by the depth of reach-out to his fellow human being,’’ Ponle said.
Gov. Aminu Masari of Katsina State, who was the special guest at the occasion, also described late Maida as a mentor, teacher and selfless leader.
“He – Maida, never lived for himself but for others. He lived a fruitful life, his life and name will continue to live on,’’ the governor said.
Masari also noted that the late ex-MD of NAN played key role in the establishment of various media organisations in northern Nigeria.
He thanked the Federal Government for immortalising Maida by approving the naming of NAN headquarters, Abuja, after him.
Maida joined NAN as a pioneering Zonal Editor in 1978, when the agency began its editorial operations.
He was later posted to London as the agency’s Western Europe Correspondent and rose to become NAN’s Editor-in-Chief in 1985.
Late Maida reached his peak in the agency when he was appointed the Managing Director in 1994 and served until 2002.
Until his death on Aug. 17, 2020, Maida was the Chairman of the agency’s Board of Directors.
Also present at the ceremony were Maida’s widow, Aminat, his children, as well as associates of the late ex-NAN chairman.(NAN)