NEWS DIARY ONLINE
The media have been urged to exercise restraint in their reportage concerning the current security challenges in some parts of the country.
Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Mr Bayo Onanuga, stated this in a statement issued on Wednesday in Abuja.
Onanuga said that the media had the responsibility to promote laudable actions by government and make positive criticism based on the overriding national interest.
According to him, screaming headlines that paint gory pictures of the situations will only hurt the country by scaring away genuine local and foreign direct investments.
“Media reporting about cases of kidnapping, communal killings and isolated terrorism acts must show some moderation by not giving the impression that all Nigerians no longer sleep with two eyes closed or are not safe in going about their day-to-day business.
“To sell our newspapers or clickbait, we tend to exaggerate and embellish, sometimes forgetting the social responsibility of the media, not to give the impression that our country is under siege by criminals or that every nook and cranny of our country is under their stranglehold.
“One of our newspapers took this responsibility to heart in its report on the same Tuesday, making its major headline, the efforts by security agents to rein in the minority vagabonds in our midst,” he said.
The presidential aide stated that though Nigeria had yet to reach the zenith of security, it was still not the worst country in terms of insecurity.
For instance, he said that in robbery and kidnapping, Nigeria was not among the most endemic countries, adding that global listing put the country at less than one person to 100,000 persons involved in the crime.
Onanuga said: “In a report by the World Population Review, Nigeria is not among the top 10 countries in the world, with kidnapping epidemic
