By Princess-Ekwi Ajide, Abuja
According to reports, Nigeria lost one thousand two hundred and forty five lives following terrorist attacks in 2019 alone.
This number is adjuged an overall decrease in the number of deaths, ascribed to Boko Haram, ethnic militia, and other communal clashes in Nigeria, even as she remains one of the countries with the highest level of threats to peace in the world.
Based on this, stakeholders in broadcasting industry met in Abuja to deliberate on ways of using the broadcast media to asksist the military mitigate all forms of conflict in the country.
Speaker after speaker at a two day workshop on using broadcasting in complementing the military in conflict mitigation, say deliberate reportage is key to ending panic associated with terrorism.
For Fidelis Mbah of the Aljazeera network, a cordial relationship between media and the military will go a long way in solving the problem of misinformation and fake news while the Chairman of the Police Service Commission, Dr. Solomon Arase, opined that conflicting groups often use journalists to propagate their policies.
Peter Igho of the “Cock Crow at Dawn” fame, who spoke based on personal experience noted that variety of media ownership has affected broadcast media content.
The vice chancellor of the Federal University of Kashere, Gombe State, Professor Umaru Pate who spoke on Intensification and Implication of fake news and hate speech, said truth is under attack from makers of fake news and agents of disinformation and intense weaponisation of information and dangerous speech.
Some participants at the workshop, including the Director News and Current Affairs of Anambra Broadcasting Service, Gab Okpaleze promised to apply what they learnt to enriching their broadcast contents so as to promote cordial relationship between the military and civilians.
