The Commander 33 Artillery Brigade, Shadawanka Barracks, Bauchi, Brigadier General E. Egbe, has charged journalists to work towards fighting against the activities of fake news peddlers for the betterment of Nigeria.
General Egbe gave the charge when he received the executives of the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Bauchi on a courtesy call in his office recently.
The commander expressed concern that the internet space is always inundated with a series of fake news from different media bloggers and noted that such a scenario is not good for the security of the society.
“We work day-in day-out to secure the communities but such good efforts and our achievements are mostly under-reported. We are not saying some anomalies should go unreported, but let it be verified and communicated correctly”, he said.
“We are all partners in the Nigerian project and as such, journalists should do more positive reports about the country than the negatives”, the Army General stated.
Brigadier General Egbe, however, advised the leadership of the union of the need for training and retraining of their members for effective and professional manner of discharging their responsibilities as mirror of the society, thereby serving as disciplinary mechanisms with a view to ensuring more sanity in the pen profession as well as curbing the menace of fake news.
During an interactive session, one of the Army officers, advised the NUJ to if possible, collaborate with social media platforms such as the Facebook and others to ensure that fake news are not allowed to thrive.
Earlier in his opening remarks, the Chairman of the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Bauchi, Mallam Ahmed Mohammed, informed the Commander that the purpose of the courtesy visit was to seek for collaboration and synergy between his members and the 33 Artillery Brigade, Bauchi under his command.
Mallam Mohammed explained that the Correspondents’ Chapel comprises both national and international print and broadcast reporters as members. He added that the members are well trained and disciplined in all aspects of journalism.
The chairman, while commending the commander and his personnel for securing Bauchi State from bandits, kidnappers and other criminally minded persons, said journalists as major stakeholders in the security project of the country, are proud of their efforts.
“As major stakeholders in the security project of Nigeria, we feel we should come and seek for more collaboration not only to contribute our own part to the successes you are recording, but also to associate with you”, Mallam Mohammed said.
