|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Professor Danjuma Gambo
By Akanji Alowoludo, Bauchi
Some of the contemporary issues Nigerians are currently grappling with are insurgency, banditry, kidnapping and other forms of criminalities making life miserable.
The insurgency, started by the dreaded Islamic sect, Boko Haram and what has now been come to be known as banditry in the North-East and North-Central parts of the country.
The assertion was made by Professor Danjuma Gambo of the Department of Mass Communication, University of Maiduguri during the opening of a 2-day capacity building for media practitioners in North-East subregion organized by the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON) holding at the NUJ Press Center, Bauchi.
According to him, the insurgency has changed a lot of things – “first, it has changed our world view, it has changed the way we do things and forever and ever, we can never go back to doing things the way we used to do them before.”
The University Don added that, “Therefore, as Journalists, we can no longer report issues of conflict as we used to. The issues have changed and the instruments for reporting must change, our knowledge and understanding must change.”
Danjuma Gambo stressed that, “This insurgency is not the type of conflicts we see in Plateau and Kaduna States, the insurgency is quite different.”
He also said that, “We also recorded COVID-19. COVID-19 changed the world view and forever and ever, we cannot change the way we do things.”
The Mass Communication Teacher stressed that, “Now, the significance of that is that, even at the peak of COVID-19, the media continued to report COVID and its consequences. Some of our colleagues were infected while some in other parts of the world died of COVID-19.”
“If such a significant global devastation should occur again, what lessons did we learn as journalists and do we think should be done differently,”,he asked.
He further asked, “What if we should have another COVID-19 epidemic or pandemic, how can we do or report better because journalists must survive before they can report?”
The Lead paper presenter during the workshop said that there would be six presentations – one would be on media and good governance because the entire discussion is about good governance.
He said that, another “One of the issues we have as a major cause of conflict is poor governance. In a democracy where the will of the people is assumed to prevail, you will have bad governance both nationally and sub-national level.”
“And where you have bad governance, there will not be peace, there will always be conflicts and that is not for the interest of the country,” he added.
According to him, “So, Journalists need to understand the importance of good governance. Good governance is the only guarantee to peace, where there is bad governance, there is likely to be violence and conflict.”
Danjuma Gambo further said that, “Then, we have media and diversity. One of the issues we are grappling with is diversity and when we say diversity, we mean the ever-changing proposition of our ethno-religious and cultural structures and processes.”
He explained that, “Things are changing, there is high mobidity of people. Boko Haram insurgency has moved many people from Borno, even Taraba, Bauchi, Gombe into Yobe and other places.”
“And so, we need to manage that diversity. The media and journalists have been accused of playing on the intelligence of people by mismanaging our diversity, instead of us to report issues that will bring about harmony, cooperation and tolerance, we are busy dividing the people and that is why it is necessary we look at that topic,” The Don emphasised.
According to him,”The use of the word journalists, is best understood in that context. As journalists, we can no longer report issues of conflict as we used to do because the issues have changed and the instruments for reporting them mostly, our knowledge and understanding and attitudes towards the issues have also changed.
