Lai Mohammed tasks NIPR on toning down incendiary rhetoric and reducing tension
Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has tasked communication professionals in the country on the need to tone down inflammatory rhetoric in order to reduce national tension in the polity. The minister said this while receiving the President of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), Mr. Muktar Sirajo and other members of the Governing Council on a courtesy visit to his office, ahead of the Institute’s Annual General Meeting in Bauchi State on 20 May, 2021.
During the courtesy visit, the minister implored the NIPR, as a stakeholder on national issues, to speak out against those fanning the embers of disunity and discord in the country.
“Each of us in our respective positions has a role to play to tone down the rhetoric and reduce the tension (in the polity), and I am glad that NIPR is lending its platform to work with the government to ensure that we have a country, which is peaceful and which is secured.”
Speaking further, he added: “Without security there can be no development and that’s why this administration is doing everything possible to return peace and security across the country. This is where I think you can come in as a body of NIPR that we must put the nation first.”
Alhaji Mohammed welcomed the NIPR’s offer to make available its platform for a national engagement on national unity, peace and security, saying this falls into the template of the town hall meetings on topical issues, which have been institutionalised by the federal government.
He also urged the NIPR to join the federal government in the fight against fake news, saying the NIPR needs to rein in members who always throw professional ethics to the wind for pecuniary gains in order to advance fake narratives.
“You have a powerful platform to actually ensure that the menace of fake news is confronted squarely. Regrettably, however, members of the Institute have been found waiting. They most times place pecuniary interests and motives above professional ethics and patriotism.
“If you recall the sad incident of the P&ID saga, it was a member of this Institute, a firm of Public Relations Consultants, which was hired to give the impression to the world that Nigeria indeed entered into an agreement with P&ID and actually reneged, and as such Nigeria should pay over US$9 billion. It took this Ministry and others to go to the UK to actually change the narratives,” the minister mentioned.
In his remarks, the President of NIPR, Mr. Sirajo, decried the politicisation of the security situation in the country by politicians, saying the issue of security is beyond politics.
He said the NIPR is ready to provide a platform for national dialogue on peace and security in order to secure a consensus on the unity of the country.
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