Commentary
By Chukwudi George Ozalla
There is a simple test of personal and professional relevance: if your present is better than your future, then something is fundamentally wrong. Growth is not an accident. It is a daily decision. Anyone who arrives at a point where yesterday looks richer than tomorrow has either abandoned discipline or mistaken comfort for achievement. No one who truly understands purpose rests on his or her oars.
Life does not reward motionlessness. It rewards hunger to deliver greater value. It rewards the quiet, stubborn refusal to remain where one is. Every meaningful profession is sustained by this inner restlessness, the desire to do better than yesterday, to know more, to see farther, and to carve a clearer niche. Once that desire dies, decline sets in, often disguised as a survival strategy.
This truth is especially urgent in professions that carry public trust. Journalism, event management, public relations, and allied callings were built on skill, preparation, dignity, and value creation. They were never meant to become platforms for public begging for handouts. Yet, regrettably, this is what is now witnessed in many cities and public gatherings.
At events where ideas and learning should take centre stage, one increasingly encounters uninvited figures parading themselves as professionals. Masters of ceremonies reduce hosting to sycophancy and outright begging for money. Bouncers abandon order to trail guests in search of handouts. Self-styled journalists, or outright quacks, carry no stories, file no reports, and ask either phoney questions or none at all, except one: what is there for us. They hover around guests, organisers, and public figures, offering exaggerated praise, sheepish hailing, and sometimes direct pleas for money, often speaking directly into guests’ mouths. Some flash questionable identity cards or make unverifiable claims. Others need no pretence at all. Their intimidating presence alone is an announcement of intent.
This behaviour deserves condemnation in the strongest possible terms.
It does not merely embarrass individuals; it stains entire professions. When journalism is reduced to handouts, journalists are no longer seen as watchdogs or chroniclers of society, but as touts in borrowed jackets. The damage is collective. Those who still labour to uphold standards are lumped together with impostors who see events as hunting grounds for daily survival. Trust erodes. Respect disappears. The profession is mocked, not by its critics, but by those who claim to practise it.
Hard questions must be asked. How did we arrive here? At what point did self-inflicted personal failure become normalised as professional culture? When did some people decide that the absence of preparation could be compensated for by proximity to power or money?
Even more troubling is the irony that, at times, these impostors outnumber actual journalists at events. They attempt to intimidate organisers, harass guests, and create an atmosphere of siege. Instead of facilitating professional coverage, they obstruct it. Instead of adding value, they drain it. This is not hustle. It is clear-cut degradation and aberration.
And who says that by practising a profession, one cannot have other means of livelihood in addition? In today’s world, multiple streams of income are not a luxury; they are wisdom. They are a game changer. No honourable profession forbids enterprise, innovation, or legitimate diversification. What diminishes an individual is not the pursuit of additional income, but the daily ritual of begging for handouts as a means of survival.
There is dignity in asking people to patronise your trade. There is honour in offering your skill, setting your price, delivering value, and earning compensation. If additional appreciation comes in monetary terms, goodwill, or recommendations, that is earned. But reducing oneself to a nuisance at every event, hovering with entitlement and desperation, is self-destruction in slow motion.
Such conduct brands a person in ways no apology can erase. Once you are known as someone who attends events to beg rather than contribute or professionally showcase skill, doors quietly close. Respect evaporates. Invitations stop. Even those who give often do so out of irritation, not regard. That is not survival. It is erosion.
Create value and reward will find you. This is not a slogan; it is a principle. Value attracts relevance. Value attracts compensation. Value attracts growth. Where value is absent, desperation takes over. Where desperation dominates, the future has already been compromised.
Institutions must also rise to their responsibility. The Nigeria Union of Journalists cannot afford steady silence in the face of this recurring embarrassment. Professional bodies exist to protect standards, not merely memberships. When quackery flourishes unchecked, legitimacy suffers. Clear identification, ethical enforcement, and visible sanctions are no longer optional. They are necessary.
Yet beyond institutions, this is ultimately a personal reckoning. Each individual must decide whether to invest in growth or settle for disgrace. The future does not announce itself. It is built quietly, through work that often goes unseen. Those who toy with their future eventually turn their profession into a begging bowl, and when that happens, dignity is the first casualty.
Let it be said plainly: any present sustained by shame has no future. Any career built on entitlement rather than excellence will collapse. Hard work, creativity, discipline, and daily improvement are not motivational phrases; they are the price of relevance.
Either build a future that intimidates your present, or cling to a present that will soon expose you as empty. No one should rest on his or her oars. The river of time does not wait. This is not to suggest that voluntary appreciation, honoraria, or compensation for excellence are wrong. They are not. But they must arise naturally, not through pressure, entitlement, or desperation.
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, NEWSCOUNT
