Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture, says
managing information for a reformist government like that of President
Muhammadu Buhari-led administration is daunting.
Mohammed spoke while delivering a keynote address in Lagos
on Thursday, at a meeting of the All Progressives Congress (APC) information
managers at federal and state levels.
The meeting was organised by the Progressive Governors
Forum, and hosted by Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governor of Lagos.
“Perhaps, the most daunting task anyone can take on in this
age and time is that of information and communication management,” Mohammed
said.
“It is even more daunting when you are engaged in
information and communication management for a reformist government like ours.
“As you all know, ‘change’ is the mantra of our party, the
APC, and change, as we all know, does not come easy.”
The minister said the advent of new information and digital
technology has made the job of information and communication management more
challenging.
According to him, social media, as a double-edged sword,
provides opportunities and challenges in equal measure.
He said while the government had leveraged on social media
platforms to propagate its activities, it recently suspended the operations of
Twitter because of the threat posed by the gross abuse of the platform to the
nation’s peace and unity.
“Twitter is the platform of choice for separatist
campaigners, especially those of them residing outside the country,” he said.
“They use it to issue directives to their followers in
Nigeria to attack our security forces, as well as to burn police stations and
INEC offices.
“It was a tough decision to take, considering that many of
our youths also use the platform for business. Such is the challenge posed by
social media.”
He also identified poor funding, due to dwindling resources
available to the government, as part of the challenges facing the information
and communication sector.
Mohammed said in spite of the challenges, his ministry had
deployed several innovations — traditional and modern methods — to project the
achievements of the administration in the three priority areas of fighting
corruption, tackling insecurity and revamping the economy.
The innovations, according to him, included town hall
meetings, testimony series, documentaries, bi-weekly news briefing, releases,
and media tour of projects.
The minister, however, lamented that in spite of the various
programmes, people were still complaining in certain circles, that not enough
is being done to publicise the administration’s achievements.
He, therefore, called for sustainability and the need for
synergy among managers of information and communication in all strata of
government.
“Information managers rarely compare notes, thus duplicating
efforts while the myriad of information being generated from the various
programmes I have listed above do not percolate enough to the grassroots,” he
said.
As a way forward, the minister said the information and
communication managers of the party, and governments at all levels should
create enough synergy to enable them to work together.
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