By Christian Ogbonnaya/Nathan Nwakamma
Yenagoa – The Joint Task Force (JTF) deployed to protect oil infrastructure in the Niger Delta on Thursday solicited support of the media to achieve its mandate of ensuring uninterrupted oil production in the region.
Major Abubakar Abdullahi, Coordinator Joint Media Campaign Centre of JTF in the Niger Delta code-named Operation DELTA SAFE, made the appeal during a familiarisation visit to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) office in Yenagoa.
Abdullahi commended NAN for its objective and credible reportage of events in the Niger Delta region, adding that the media was an indispensable ally to a stable polity.
He explained that the mandate of the JTF in the region included protection of Oil and Gas Infrastructure to deter militancy, piracy, crude oil theft and other crimes capable of having adverse effects on economic activities in the region.
He said that his deployment followed routine posting and redeployment in the Nigerian military, noting that NAN was a strategic ally of the Nigerian military.
Abdullahi, a member of Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, has served in different capacities across the country in the Army Public Relations and Information Management functions.
The new coordinator took over from Lt.-Col. Olaolu Daudu who was redeployed to serve as Deputy Director, Army Public Relations at the 81 Division Nigerian Army, Lagos.
Mr Nathan Nwakamma, the NAN State Correspondent in Bayelsa, pledged to sustain the existing cordial relationship between the joint task force and NAN in the region.
Nwakamma urged the spokesman to always respond to requests for information as timeliness was essential in News Agency journalism.
