By Our Correspondent

President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), Eze Anaba, has charged energy journalists to go beyond periodic reporting and dig deep into activities in Nigeria’s energy sector in order to discharge their duties holistically.
Anaba said this herculean task must be carried out diligently as Nigeria’s energy sector was at a crossroads and plagued by oil and gas asset divestments, declining exploration and production investments, legacy oil spills, climate change, pipeline vandalism, artisanal refining and challenges surrounding domestic gas supply.
The NGE president made these submissions recently at the inaugural seminar of the Society of Energy Editors, SEE, held in Lagos with the theme, “Reporting an Evolving Energy Industry: The Nigerian Experience”.
He stated that beyond press releases and general stories, energy journalism must interrogate the policies, investments and systemic failures shaping Nigeria’s energy industry in line with the media’s agenda-setting responsibility, particularly on issues that have implications for national development and economic governance
. He said: “Objective reporting means telling the story as it is, without fear or favour. It requires us to verify facts, balance perspectives, and present issues in their full context. “But agenda-setting takes us further. It requires us to identify and bring to public consciousness the issues that are most critical to national development and democratic governance.” “It is within this complex and volatile landscape that we, as the media, must operate.”
According to Anaba, energy journalists must scrutinise government claims on reforms, including the removal of petroleum subsidy, rather than merely reproducing official narratives. He tasked journalists to establish whether the trillions of naira said to have been generated from subsidy removal were translating into promised investments in infrastructure, security and social protection.

In his presentation, former Presidential spokesman Mr. Femi Adesina decried lack of climate literacy as a major reason for the underreporting of climate change by Nigerian journalists.
Adesina also decried energy poverty and linked it to the poverty afflicting many households in Nigeria, Africans and Diaspora today.
In his presentation titled “Reporting Climate Change and the Challenges of Energy Poverty” Adesina explained that lack of access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services needed for basic health, education and daily living.
“When there’s energy poverty, there’s little or no electricity, the use of polluting fuel is prevalent (wood, charcoal, dung etc) instead of clean energy. The impact on the environment is deleterious. Causes millions of deaths yearly. Also stunted growth in children.” he said
Anaba identified crude supply challenges facing the Dangote Refinery, the impact of petrol subsidy removal, fragile renewable energy adoption and recurring national grid collapses as critical issues demanding greater media scrutiny.
According to him, the absence of a coherent national energy security strategy compounded the challenges confronting the industry.
He noted that Dangote Refinery operations represent a potential game-changer for our economy, yet the crude oil supply challenges it faces remain underexplored by the media.
“These are not technical details; they are fundamental questions about the viability of our industrialization strategy and the effectiveness of the Petroleum Industry Act.”
He also noted that recurring national grid collapses were often reported as isolated events without sufficient examination of their underlying causes.
The NGE President also identified inadequate control mechanisms, gas supply shortages, insufficient transmission facilities, vandalism and an ageing transmission network among the issues requiring deeper investigation.
“We must not just report that the grid collapsed; we must interrogate why and hold those responsible to account,” he said.
He acknowledged that Nigerian journalism had recorded successes, including exposing corruption, holding powerful interests accountable and reporting environmental degradation and community displacement linked to oil exploration. However, he said energy coverage remained too superficial in many instances.
“Too often, our coverage of the energy sector remains superficial. We report announcements but fail to interrogate the underlying policies. We quote press releases but do not seek out expert analysis or alternative perspectives,” Anaba said.
He urged journalists to develop stronger technical, financial and policy knowledge of the industry, including the ability to analyse financial statements, interrogate economic assumptions behind policies and translate complex energy decisions into accessible information.
Anaba said the era of simplistic energy reporting was over because the stakes surrounding oil, gas, electricity and the energy transition were too high. “The challenges facing the industry are too complex and the stakes too high for us to settle for anything less than excellence,” he said