‘Don’t Be Intimidated By Boko Haram’

Chief Press Secretary to Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State, Mr Isola Adeyemi, has advised media practitioners not to be intimated by the activities of the militant Boko Haram.

Adeyemi gave the advice yesterday in Bauchi in an interview with newsmen.

He admonished journalists to be balanced and objective in their reportage to avoid the anger of either Boko Haram or those of members of the public.

“Practitioners, one should not be intimidated; we should not allow fear to be injected in us, but one thing we should do is to be fair; we should be objective, in all our reports.

“Before you go to press, try as much as possible to balance your report and is very important, where you cannot balance your report, you may decide to leave it until such a time that you get a balance.

“Because it is lack of getting balance that is putting us in danger, if Mr. A says Mr. B is a thief, what efforts have you made to get Mr. B to say I am not a thief, you don’t need him to justify why he is not a thief.

“The mere saying that I am not a thief is enough for you to go on with your report; you can say Mr. A has called Mr. B a thief, but when I met Mr. B, he says he is not a thief, and you are free.’’

Adeyemi described the recent happenings in the country as unfortunate since they had brought untold hardship to the entire Nigerian populace.

“It is unfortunate that what we’ve been hearing in other parts of the world is gradually coming to Nigeria, and we pray and hope that God will intervene so that the problem can quickly be resolved.

“Because if it is not resolved for a long time, not journalists alone, every Nigerian is going to be in great danger, so anywhere ones is across Nigeria, one will not be safe.

“And where there is no safety of lives and property, there cannot be development; when there is no development, life is going to be difficult for people. So, we are praying.

“I was reading in a paper today, one of our leaders, in the person of Danjuma, saying that Nigeria is becoming a Somalia; at this period, we don’t need statements like this. What we need is what do we do to get out of the problem?