Abuja -The Managing Director, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Mr Ima Niboro on Thursday urged the media to contribute positively to building a better Nigeria.
Niboro made the call in his office in Abuja when he received a delegation from the University of Abuja, led by the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Micheal Adikwu.
• Cue in audio 1 (Niboro)
“It is clear that in the function of nation-building you must have positive media.
“Since 1999 we have achieved democracy and this is the longest stretch of democracy that we have experienced in this country and because of this I tell my colleagues all the time that the war is over. The military is gone.
“This is democracy; you cannot win all the time; power must shift from one place to the other and how do we assist every government (that comes) in building the country of our dream.
“The kind of things our leaders go through here is sometimes unbelievable. If you Google (for) the most abused President in the world, the thing that will come up will be Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria.
“They have transported it to the present and even the present administration is being attacked less than two months in office.
“What can a government achieve in two months? What is two months in the life of a nation? Now the new President is already being called all kind of names.
“We keep our country perpetually unstable because of all these things.“
Niboro said that it was unfortunate that the Nigerian media, through their reportage, had led the world to believe that the country was a corrupt society.
He said: “Today Nigeria is regarded as one of the most corrupt countries in the world, but I do not agree with that view.
“We must learn to build our nation; we do not have any other country to call our own; we must remain here and serve it.
“If we ridicule our leaders and ridicule our country, which country are we going to call our own?
“Here, there is nothing that is sacred; anything can be written; anything can be published no matter what happens.
“Even if it sets the country ablaze nobody cares; yet we come back and say Nigeria is unstable, Nigeria is not growing.“
The managing director said that the agency would support the university in the setting up of its radio station and in the area of training for its students.
“I look forward to working closely with you and the university authorities. I am happy to hear that you have a radio station. We will work with you and in the area of training. We are fully on ground.“
Speaking earlier, the vice chancellor said that the delegation was at NAN to seek the agency’s cooperation in the area of training for the university’s mass communication students on industrial attachment.
Adikwu also solicited the agency assistance in the setting up of the university’s radio station.
“We have so many things we can do together – the News Agency of Nigeria and the university.
“There is a little radio station we are trying to set up. The project has been on for a while; we want to make it functional. We want to solicit your help.
“We have paid the license for two years now and the various process of activating it is already on. So that is one of the reasons we are here.
“The other issue is as a university we do media arts, we do not have a department of mass communication yet, although we are working on that.
“We are sure you have the capacity to help us bring that to the fore and our students in English sometimes they will need to do attachments; this is a very good place to come to as far as those areas are concerned.“
(NAN)