Onyebuchi Ezigbo
The Catholic Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja, Most Rev. Ignatius Kaigama has urged the federal government to reconsider the suspension imposed on the micro blogging platform, Twitter, saying that the social outfit offers a lot of benefits for Nigerian youths.
Speaking to journalists in Abuja yesterday shortly after the commencement of week-long training workshop for Directors of Communications of the various dioceses of the Catholic Church in Nigeria, Kaigama said that no one would blame the government for cautioning or drawing the attention of the affected organisation to any wrongdoing but that what is of concern was the clampdown and outright suspension.
“If someone has a problem with the media, there is a way to address it but because I understand that our president was banned by Twitter and then the whole nation has to be suspended from Twitter use. It doesn’t sound very reasonable and I think there is a better and more effective way of addressing this,” he said.
Kaigama said that there was no doubt that the country needed the media, but that “what is important is that they should communicate what is authentic, genuine and what is going to promote values and national cohesion”.
“This is what I want and not to ban them. I think the people should be encouraged to use the media correctly and the wrong use of it is what should be banned and not the media outfit.”
The Archbishop advised that government and Twitter group should find a way to resolve the dispute so that the people who rely on it for their economic activities are not allowed to suffer unnecessarily.
Earlier the Director of Communications in the Abuja Archdiocese, Padre Umoh said the essence of the workshop for the Directors of Communications is to review their work so far and in view of the new challenges, proffer ways of responding to these challenges adequately.
He said the theme of workshop adequately explains the aim of the training workshop which is to empower Directors of Communications in the media apostolate of the various diocese of the Catholic Church in Nigeria.
He said the workshop will involve training of the directors in the use of modern technologies to improve their journalistic skills.
He said the training will also enable the officers in the various dioceses to acquire knowledge on how to utilise the new App – ‘Nigeria Catholic Network” recently set up by the church to facilitate coordination of its activities
