Why I am in JOUR S-100 Class.

Mustapha Shehu

I joined journalism due to my personal conviction that it is a profession that can easily give me the greatest opportunity I crave for to touch the lives of many out there. I see journalism as a vehicle of achieving a just and egalitarian society, a conscience of the society. Having grown up under military dictatorship, it pains me how my country has over the years missed the opportunity to get where it ought to be, to realise its full potentials.

I have the dream; I have the zeal, and I also have a rough idea of how I can go about doing what I set out to do. But I do not believe I have the capacity in terms of formal training on how to achieve my objectives. Since graduating from the university in 1985 with a degree in chemistry, I worked in the civil service of my country before I voluntarily retired to do something more worthwhile with my life. I have seen how corrupt and inefficient the service is. I have seen how back home in the rural areas my folks have idled a petty life with poverty a common denominator. I know this kind of poverty can to a great extent be avoided if those in government can be held accountable. Although in the last nine years since an elective democratic system of government replaced the long stretch of military dictatorship in the country things have begun to change, I think much still needs to change. The present political class it seems is relapsing into the old corrupt ways of the military. Whereas under military dictatorship the media is dangled the “stick”, the new political class has devised a means of dangling the “carrot” to the media. And an appreciable cross section of the media seems to be swallowing it.

I am only two years old in the practise of journalism. I have chosen to come to Harvard Summer School primarily to be a real journalist, to sharpen my innate skill. The course will not only give me the opportunity to make editor in my paper THISDAY www.thisdayonline.com , which is Nigeria’s New York Times, but if I make the appropriate grades in it and JOUR S-150 Advanced Narrative Non-Fiction, I will be able to take another Extension School course online in the fall to qualify me to apply for the ALM Journalism Programme. With a Harvard ALM, I can rise to the top of the profession where I believe my decisions will impact positively on journalism in my country.