Information and Culture Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has asked for a special funding arrangement for public media organizations to enable them scale up their sensitization campaign against insurgency in the North-East.
The minister made the call at the National Assembly during an interactive session with members of the Senate Committee on Information and National Orientation, preparatory to the 2016 budget defence.
Alhaji Mohammed said his ministry has already mounted a robust public sensitisation campaign on insurgency with the active participation of the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria but noted that public media needed to be retooled to enhance its ability to drive the campaign.
“I must admit that we have constraints. The Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) in particular does not have the reach it used to have before and this is not surprising because for years, we have neglected the maintenance of the FRCN, Voice of Nigeria (VON) is even worse…” he said.
He disclosed that the public media organs were directed to itemise the necessary requirements needed to prosecute the public sensitization campaign against the insurgency in order for the people to take ownership of the war and be security conscious.
On the National Orientation Agency (NOA), the minister said: “We see the NOA as a veritable vehicle not just in the war against insurgency but on all the wars against every ill including the war against corruption. We are working on this renewed campaign, which is going to be a much improved campaign on war against indiscipline, which we have tagged “Change Begins With Me”.
In his remarks, committee chairman, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe urged the executive arm of government to prepare and present an amended budget to capture all the necessary requirements of the public media organs to ensure success in the sensitization campaign against insurgency.