LAGOS – Maj.-Gen. Ti Dibi, General Officer Commanding (GOC), 81 Division, Nigerian Army, Lagos, on Monday urged the media to sustain the relationship between it and the Army to promote national peace and security.
Dibi made the call at the opening of a four-day workshop on the “Impact of Military/Media relations in Promoting National Peace and Security’’ in Lagos.
He said that for a good relationship to be fostered, the media needed to verify its information before disseminating it to the public.
He added that both institutions were in the vanguard of promoting peace and security in society.
“We should be patriotic; write stories that will foster synergy in the promotion of peace and security in Nigeria,’’ Dibi said.
He said that security agencies did not hide under the nebulous concept of national security to starve the media of information, even when the matter at stake holds no such implication.
He advised journalists to always balance their stories and not write about failures of the army and matters that were capable of thwarting military programmes and cause disaffection in society.
He commended the Commandant of the Nigerian Army School of Public Relations and Information (NASPRI), Col. John Agim for the workshop, expressing the hope that the participants would come out better for peace and security of the nation.
Delivering a paper on “Impact of Military/Media Relations in Promoting National Peace and Security’’ at the event, Mr Femi Adesina,
Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief, The Sun Newspapers called for the right synergy between the two institutions.
“No one is more patriotic then the other. The country belongs to us all. If we continue to function like adversaries, with an attitude of ‘we’ against ‘them’, then the country loses ultimately.
“When peace and security breaks down irretrievably, the media, the military, and the citizenry suffer,’’ he said.
Adesina, also the president, Nigerian Guild of Editors, said that relationship was key to the media and security institutions and there should be free flow of information between them.
“The media is always quite useful to reshape the minds of the people towards peaceful coexistence.
“ The media can generate public support for security agencies involved in Internal Security, if the two are mutually dependent on each other,’’ he said.
He noted that security agencies often manipulated the media by planting stories that were not completely true on them, noting that it was not ethical or professional.
He called for capacity building in military matters for the media and the training and retraining of officers handling information dissemination
for the military.
“They also need to know how the media works. The military should utilise technology, including functional, updated websites, digital media etc, depending on the Information Policy of the service.
“If it will play the role of a veritable link well, the media must be very professional. How the media comports itself can either douse or escalate tension in a country.
“A partial, compromised, or hostile media is bad news for peace and security in any country.’’
Earlier the NASPRI’s Commandant, Agim, said that this year’s workshop was expanded to include Commanding officers who did not have public relations support in the course of their duties.
Also, Defence Correspondents are part of the training to acquaint with the workings of the military and engender good relationship between the institutions for peace and security of the nation.
Agim said that by the training the officers would be able to handle their media relations effectively, while journalists would be more proficient in reporting the highly challenging duties of the military.
“There is nothing training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach. It can turn bad morals to good; it can destroy bad principles and recreate good ones; it can lift men to angelship.
“As we approach 2015, the election year, Nigerians are already waiting to see how prepared we are to assist the country towards achieving success in the upcoming elections.
“The workshop will go a long way to guarantee them of our preparedness to achieving that. We will continue to do this in collaboration with the security agencies and the media,’’ he said. (NAN)
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