House of Representatives Speaker, Mr. Yakubu Dogara, has urged owners of media organisations in the country to provide life insurance cover for journalists.
Dogara made the call on Monday when he led a delegation of members of the House to condole with the Press Corps of the lower chamber on the death of their colleague, Mr. Otei Oham of The Guardian.
The Reporter died in a hospital in Calabar on Saturday in the course a brief illness.
The Speaker urged media proprietors to consider the risk journalists take, and place them on life insurance. He expressed concern that in spite of the role journalists play in promoting democracy, some media organisations fail to pay their salaries as and when due.
He, therefore, charged media owners to place the welfare of journalists on their priority list, to allow them to fall back to a source of livelihood after retirement or in the event of a mishap.
Dogara described the sudden demise of Oham as painful, and urged members of the press corps to accept it as one of the inevitabilities of life.