The National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, has urged the Nigerian media to mobilise support for President Bola Tinubu’s government and bolster the administration’s fight against terrorists. He cautioned media managers against promoting terrorists’ propaganda and ideologies through security issue reportage.

“The media is also expected to mobilise support to government and national security efforts and strongly help to dissipate ignorance that makes some persons vulnerable to terrorist appeals,” said Mr Ribadu at a two-day training on ‘Effective Reporting: Towards Strengthening Alternatives to Terrorist Ideology’, on Tuesday in Abuja.

It was organised by the National Counter-Terrorism Centre-Office of the National Security Adviser (NCTC-ONSA). The training was organised in collaboration with the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR).

The NSA said the kind of information being processed and passed could be functional with positive expectations or dysfunctional with negative and life-threatening consequences.

“Media practitioners must always be mindful of this in the discharge of their responsibilities in order to expose societal ills and suspicious characters and activities.

“Terrorist groups have continued to provide dysfunctional information through social media platforms, networking sites, and online propaganda, including mainstream and traditional mediums of communication. This is a situation that we must jointly combat to attain a safe and peaceful society that will guarantee sustainable socio-economic development.

“To achieve this,  media practitioners must produce content that would counter or prevent the appeals of terrorism and other non-state armed groups. Indeed, there is the need for robust media campaigns against terrorism, violent extremism and all other forms of organised crime threatening our corporate existence as a country,” Mr Ribadu said.

Mr Ribadu said the training was part of efforts to respond to the call in the UN Secretary General’s Plan of Action for member states to develop and implement a national communication strategy.

According to him, this is to ensure the dissemination of positive content across a wide range of media, both traditional and digital platforms, to counter terrorist appeals and violent extremist narratives.

He said media content could change people’s perceptions and attitudes and galvanise solidarity, mutual trust, patriotism, and national cohesion.

“This training is to build your capacity to be able to process and disseminate appropriate narratives (counter, alternative and positive) to address extremist ideologies,” the NSA explained.

Mr Ribadu urged journalists “to avail yourselves of this opportunity to learn from the vast experiences of the resource persons drafted to interact with you.”

(NAN)