Terrorists, insurgents, bandits and other criminals should be swept off the front pages of newspapers as well as television screens and airwaves in order to deny them the oxygen of publicity which they crave for, Minister of Information and National orientation Alhaji Mohammed Idris has said. Security reporting, he said, must be factual, responsible and nation-focused because the media cannot possibly align with or assist enemies who are bent on the nation’s destruction.
The minister spoke at the Chief of Defence Staff’s briefing for media executives at Defence Headquarters in Abuja, where he chairman of the occasion. He said the media should report not just what has gone wrong in military and security operations but also what was done right. “Let us amplify the progress made, which is a morale booster for the men and women in uniform who are working tirelessly to protect the country and to keep us safe,” he said.
At the event, Defence Headquarters showed a documentary film about the soldiers wounded in combat operations across the country. Many of them have lost limbs, eyes, other parts of the body and even voice due to wounds, and the efforts made by the military high command to get them treated and rehabilitated in local and foreign hospitals. Minister Idris expressed emotion at their plight and urged all Nigerians to assist in the treatment and rehabilitation efforts, which the military alone cannot shoulder due to scarcity of resources. He however thanked Chief of Defence Staff General Christopher Musa for the tremendous efforts made to treat the wounded soldiers abroad, which is very expensive.
