Give press more access to regional summits

The twelfth summit of the Northern Corridor Integration Projects (NCIP) held in Kigali this week, was so close yet so far for local journalists; in the end, there was no option but to wait for the usually dry communiqué, even for those accredited to cover the event. Why? Well, for some reason, the organizers decided to declare most of the sessions closed to the press and there is nothing as frustrating as when a reporter can’t access the scene of action to watch and feel the story unfold, instead, forced to sit out and wait for an official statement. On Wednesday afternoon, I skipped lunch to do a little preparatory reading in anticipation of the country progress reporting session at 2pm; during the session, Ministers from the principle members of the NCIP were to give status up-dates on the planned projects. We had applied for accreditation, names of three reporters, including myself, and a photographer to cover various sessions of interest during the summit; personally, I was much interested in the progress reports for a year-ender article on the status of key projects. An email from the office coordinating the accreditation of journalists had been sent to us indicating that we had been cleared to cover the event and we were advised to go pick up our press badges. So on Wednesday afternoon; excited about the prospect of being in a room full of prominent news sources to quote, I rushed to the registration centre to pick my badge before continuing to the venue of the session…it was to be woe on me. At the registration table, I approached a young smartly dressed gentleman and introduced myself as a local journalist who was there to pick my press badge to cover the summit. Normally this should be an easy process; after all, I had been registered in advance. But then the gentleman, wearing a self-assured smile asked for my passport. Now that was unexpected. I never move around with my passport unless I am traveling out of the country. I mean, I don’t have to, my company’s service card will normally grant me access to any office. Not on this occasion. I presented my service card but the gentleman insisted on seeing my passport. This is a confession: I love to demand for explanations whenever I am asked to do something rather unusual, and on this occasion, I asked the ‘registration officer’ why he needed my passport yet he had seen my journalist’s identification, which is why I was there in the first place. Another confession: I’m a big fan of security officers and whenever they are the cause of my distress, I find myself in a predicament, not knowing whether to be annoyed or just impressed by how strict they can be while on duty. One thing about security officer is that, they think in a straight line and are under strict orders not to deviate from that line; they are also not obligated to answer questions whose answers are unscripted and when in such a situation, they are encouraged to report that as an ‘incident.’ That is exactly what happened when I questioned the need for my passport to access the venue, the answer was really simple; apparently, they needed the passport number to identify the person before registration could be processed. Unfortunately, I wasn’t supposed or expected to ask, I was only required to do as told and my failure to do so was seen as ‘off-script behavior.’ It had to be filed as an incident. After a while, the ‘registration officer’ reluctantly explained why he needed the passport and although I didn’t have it on me, I knew the passport number which I provided and he crossed it in the system. “Your name is not on the list of those accredited,” he reported. More questions, from me. More annoyance to him; another incident… I made a few calls to the office concerned and was informed that they had decided to accredit only one reporter and a photographer to cover the summit. However, because of my fairly consistent reporting on the northern corridor projects, they agreed to instruct the registration supervisor to process my accreditation to enable me attend the session. Another confession: My surname should never fool you into thinking I don’t understand Kinyarwanda. Unfortunately, you can’t save everyone so I have watched dozens of people fall prey, saying things right in my face on assumption I didn’t understand. So, yes, I managed to gather that my exchange with the ‘registration officer’ had been interpreted as ‘gasuzuguro’ and the registration supervisor decided I would not be granted accreditation. I was there pacing, feeling very insignificant when the Ethiopian ambassador to Uganda came in with his delegation, we embraced in greeting and he intimated to me that his country’s foreign minister was likely to announce full Ethiopia’s full membership to the Northern corridor. “See you inside,” he said. He had no idea that I had been bounced. Watching news on NTV-Uganda, later that evening, a news anchor said: “Rwanda and Uganda have had disagreements regarding which sections of the railway to start with, but Rwanda hosting this summit in Kigali shows that the situation has normalized.” That was an ignorant statement because the summits are actually held on rotation basis, quarterly. Give the press more access to report more accurately or risk misinformation.

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Give press more access to regional summits