President, NGE, Gbenga Adefaye

Okon Bassey

The Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) has called on security agencies to take more proactive steps to curtail the activities of Boko Haram currently ravaging some parts of the North.

Rising from a four-day conference in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, at the weekend, the body of editors noted that Boko Haram crisis has impacted negatively on all Nigerians.

The Nigerian editors listed other threats to national security to include, illegal oil bunkering, kidnapping, armed robbery, poverty, illiteracy, injustice, unemployment, religious intolerance, porous borders and proliferation of arms.

“The Guild urged President Goodluck Jonathan and other elected officials to put in place extra measures to tackle these problems and give succour to live of citizens”.

In an eight-point resolutions adopted at the end of the conference, the editors listed steps to handle the problems to include the provision of the right security infrastructure that can help the various security agencies to keep ahead of criminal elements in the society.

The Guild stressed the need for openness and transparency with the rules of engagement in all anti-terror activities, while editors should ensure fairness, balance and accuracy in the presentation of stories.

The communiqué which was signed by the President, Gbenga Adefaye and Chairman, Planning Committee of the Conference, Femi Adesina, the Guild canvassed for a continuous engagement between the security agencies and the media on ways to tackle insecurity in the country.

It underscored the agenda-setting role of the media and urged all editors to live up to his responsibility, especially at it concerns national security.

Equally too, the conference asked the Editors to continue to be in the vanguard of promoting national unity and integration and be wary of those who seek to use the media to canvass issues that divide the nation.

The participants decried the seeming absence of inter-governmental cooperation in delivery democracy dividends to the populace and urged all the three tiers of government to collaborate and dialogue on the best ways of meeting the demands of the public, preservation of law and order.