Insurgency: Security agencies urged to be credible
(Nigeria) Security and response agencies in the country have been
tasked on the need to be credible in their dealings with the media if the
public must continue to repose confidence in those who are paid to protect
them.
Former Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the late
President Umaru Yar'Adua, Mr Segun Adeniyi stated this Wednesday in Abuja
while delivering a paper at the ongoing Seminar on Media Engagement in Crisis
Situations for Security and Response Agencies.
The seminar is organised by the
Centre for Crisis Communication, CCC, with support from the Defence Headquarters
DHQ and the Nigeria Stability and Reconciliation Programme, NSRP.
Entitled, "Media Perception of the Service Delivery of
Security and Response Agencies in Nigeria", the paper held that Nigerians
do not place much trust in their security and response agencies.
He said although the role of the media is to tell the
stories of these agencies with facts and figures but the onus is on the
agencies to always make themselves available to the media.
"Down-playing the role of the media in national
security can only encourage rumour-mongering", he said.
He urged the agencies and the media to have a defined rule
of engagement especially in critical situations which requires tactful
reporting so as not to give away tips to criminals who are on the run.
Adeniyi who is the Chairman of the Editorial Board of
ThisDay Newspapers said security agencies must begin to build respect for
themselves. They must send a clear message to criminals that when they kill an
operative, they cannot get away with it, he said.
He recalled the killing of DSS operatives few years ago by
members of the Ombatse sect in Alakyo, Nasarawa state, and lamented that rather
than going after the killers, the then leadership of the DSS declared that the
Service had forgiven the killers even while the corpses of the operatives had
not been retrieved and their loved ones still mourning.
Contributing to the paper, a former Director of Army Public
Relations, Brig. Gen. MM Yerima said information managers should strive to
build trust with the media as well as some level of interpersonal relations
with journalists.
"The moment you are not honest with them, they will
strike you", he said principals of agencies should also be timely in given
adequate briefings to their information managers because the news has to be
reported and journalists would not wait for hours on end to get confirmation from
crisis communicators.
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