Army Chief Seeks Journalists, Bloggers Support To End Insecurity

Chief of army staff, Lt-Gen Faruk Yahaya, yesterday, in Benin City urged journalists, bloggers, social media influencer, civil society organisations and every Nigerian to show sense of patriotism in order for the military to defeat insurgency.

Yahaya, who represented by the chief of civil-military affairs, major general Markus Kangye, spoke at the 22nd edition of social media seminar.

The seminar with the theme, “The Nigerian Army’s Non-Kinetic Lines of Operation: Critical Roles of the Social Media”, is aimed at strengthening the Nigerian Army’s civil- military cooperation and curbing the menace of fake news syndrome.

Gen Yahaya said the seminar is one of the several ways the military seeks to interact with the civil populace in order to foster civil- military cooperation and to rob minds and find ways to curb the social menace of insecurity as we all have roles to play in the promotion of peace and security in our nation.
Yahaya said that in a bid to foster civil-military cooperation, the military in 2010, established the department of civil military affairs which has carried out a lot of skills acquisition programmes as part of its corporate social responsibility aimed at winning the hearts and minds as well as bridging perceived gaps between the Nigeria Army and the civil populace.

“In the last five years, the military has carried out more than 1000 impact related civil- military projects across the country aimed at bridging the gap between the military and the civil populace while also projecting the image of the military”, he said.

Also, major general Kelvin Aligbe, advised media to be guided by the principles of social responsibility, noting that disparaging remarks and statements about the military in social media is unpatriotic.

He said, “Patriotism must be strengthened by inculcating the right values in the citizens’ rights from the cradle, because inculcating the right values will increase patriotism which has multiplier effects that would go a long way to mitigate incidences of insurgency and terrorism”.