By Emmanuel Udom / Senior
Correspondent, Lagos
Recently the
Nigerian Army organised a workshop where the military and media practitioners
sat at a roundtable to discuss the gains and pains of national security.
The workshop organised by the
Nigerian Army School of Public Relations and Information (NASPRI) held at the
Bonny Cantonment in Victoria Island, Lagos.
Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Lt.
General Kenneth Minimah taking questions from the press
Meant basically for Army public
relations officers, commanding officers and defence correspondents, the event
brought together editors and senior military officers, where the sensitive
issues of national security were discussed.
In his welcome address,
Brigadier-General Ganiyu Adewale, General Officer Commanding 81 Division of the
Nigerian Army said that despite the realities of the insurgency in the North
East of the country, there is basically no friction between the military and
the media.
Adewale however appealed to the
media to always strive to verify their information before publication, saying
that the Boko Haram mayhem is being blown out of proportion by the media,
noting that foreign journalists working for CNN, BBC, VOA are always careful in
publishing or broadcasting negative reports on their countries.
Brigadier-General Olajide Olaleye,
Director of Army Public Relations in his submissions on ‘Bridging Communication
and Information Gap in the Units for Effective Command and Control’ insisted
that the various sensational headlines in newspapers and magazines are rather
working against national security.
According to him, some people, who
are watching the unfolding drama in the North-Eastern states of Adamawa, Bornu,
and Yobe on insurgency, would be tempted to believe the strong worded headlines
of daily newspapers more than the statements of senior military officers on the
issue.
He advised the media to do more of
in-depth analysis on the Boko Haram mayhem, where some hard questions could be
tackled, instead of casting headlines that are capable of further heating up
the system in the name if selling their papers.
Femi Adesina, president of the
Nigeria Guild of Editors, called on the authorities of the Nigerian Army to
ensure that its officers relating with the media on information are trained and
re-trained periodically.
Speaking on ‘the Impact of
Military/Media Relations in Promoting National Peace and Security,’ Adesina
said that over the years, the relationship between the media and the military
in Nigeria has gone through many phases.
According to him, these phases range
from hostility, to brutality, to mutual suspicion, and then, to the wary
collaboration that currently exist.
He noted that under military rule,
the media and military were like cat and mouse, recalling that Mineri Amakiri
had his head shaven with broken bottle under Commander Alfred Diette-Spiff as
governor of old Rivers State.
He also recalled the ordeals of
Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor who were jailed under Decree 4, during the
Buhari/Idiagbon regime.
He said: “Many journalists were
beaten up, doubled up, harassed, and traumatized in different parts of the
country. The result was mutual antagonism between the two institutions, when
they should rather collaborate for peace and security. Each wants to do the
other in, when they should rather understand their differences, and collaborate
for the sake of the country.”
The NGE scribe, who is also the
managing director of The Sun Newspaper, however said that of recent,
particularly with the advent of democratic rule, the relationship has got a lot
better.
“The military knew it had to
subordinate itself to the laws of the land (which are non-martial) and they
began to work better with the media.
“It seemed an amicable relationship
was being forged, till insurgency in the North East got to a height, and the
military set the relationship backwards in June this year, confiscating the
products of newspaper houses under the spurious guise that the distribution
vehicles of newspaper houses were to be used to ferry obnoxious materials round
the country.
“For the three days that the
onslaught on media houses lasted, grave injury was done to the relationship
between the military and the media, and old wounds were re-opened.
It constituted a big setback in a
relationship that had got progressively better,” he said.
Adesina further disclosed that as
far as he is concerned, the June crackdown on the media was particularly sad,
as on April 10, 2014, there had been an unprecedented closing of ranks between
the media and the security agencies.
It was an evening that indicated and
signposted the new relationship between the media and the security agencies, as
the services were not only represented, they equally gave handsome donations.
Then, in June, the crunch
came. A siege was laid to the products of newspaper houses round the
country. And we lost money in millions of naira.
Apart from economic losses, however,
that development wreaked serious havoc on military/media relations. It
took us far back to the time that the head of Amakiri was shaved with broken
bottles by Diette-Spiff.
Adesina insisted that at this stage
in the history of the country, what the military and the media need is not
antagonism, nor antipathy of any kind, but collaboration to enhance peace and
security in the country.
With the ravages of insurgency in
the North East, and with the occasional forays of the insurgents into other
parts of the country, what the two institutions need is active collaboration,
for the sake of the country.
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