Workers at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) have asked for improved working conditions, saying most Abuja staffers were diagnosed with high blood pressure.

Another hazard they pointed out was the effect of heavy workload on the workforce.

“Not long ago, a medical outfit came on medical outreach in the NAN Abuja office and found that most workers had high blood pressure. Some attributed it to heavy workload, while others attributed it to heavy loans they took due to poor remuneration. We believe that improved working conditions will check that trauma on the workforce and encourage optimum productivity,” they disclosed.

On Monday, the workers stated this in Lagos during an interactive session with senior officials of the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC).

They drew the commission’s attention to the danger associated with getting audio and visual clips in the bid to meet NAN’s mandate of providing credible and evidence-based reports.

The information minister Lai Mohammed pleaded with lawmakers not to slash his propaganda budget proposal on the same day.

NAN workers also spoke of dangers occasioned by constant exposure to radiation while handling modern digital communication gadgets, stressing that such was not the case in the past.

They noted that many of their colleagues had either died or sustained injuries in seeking credible news, recalling the death of Musa Nuhu, an assistant chief correspondent in the search for news in Jos.

The country’s largest news content providers also said the multimedia task of audiovisual reporting had added to NAN journalists’ workloads, while newsgathering had become a 24/7 activity as against the dawn-to-dusk enterprise of the past.

The workers further explained that they work round-the-clock as the agency had to report every piece of news as it breaks to meet its mandate of being first with the news.

They noted the danger fake news was posing to Nigeria’s corporate existence and urged the commission to improve NAN workers’ working conditions to motivate them to go the extra mile searching for the truth.

They also recalled that technical and editorial staff were at work all through the period when Nigeria was under lockdown in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“While everyone was forced to stay at home to avoid the disease, NAN journalists, as frontline workers, were all over the place looking for credible information that will protect Nigerians from the pandemic,” the NAN workers stated. “We all had to stay on our feet so that the disease does not consume Nigerians. That we have recorded one of the least number of casualties is as a result of useful and timely information NAN offered to Nigeria and Nigerians.”

The NSIWC officials, Shuaib Umar and C. P. Ochor, said they had taken note of the workers’ concerns.

They agreed that a lot had changed in the execution of the NAN mandate, with workers having to work round-the-clock, unlike in the past when news service ended with the direct sharing of news bulletins to clients at dusk.

They also noted the stiff competition in the media space and the need for NAN workers to be ahead of other media outlets.

(NAN)