Following continuous calls that State Police should be introduced in Nigeria, the Deputy Governor of Plateau State, Prof. Sonni Tyoden has said the country is not ripe for such.
He also said for insecurity and calls for restructuring to be tackled, the problem of governance had to be addressed.
Tyoden disclosed while speaking at the colloquium tagged: ‘Insecurity in Nigeria and Agitations for Restructuring’, organised by the NUJ, Plateau Council, as part of its activities to mark its 2019 Press Week, in Jos, the State Capital.
According to him, “addressing the challenges of governance, would help in addressing the problem of insecurity.
“We have not been able to handle our diversities maturely and this is a major threat to the success of state policing. Nigeria is not yet mature for the adoption of state police.”
Presenting a paper on the same topic, Prof. Dakas CJ Dakas, said that in the quest to be agenda setters in the society, journalists should be objective and balanced in their reportage.
He said state policing as a restructuring approach would be successful if the multicultural and religious sensibilities of people were incorporated into the state’s security architecture.
“Failure to incorporate our complexities will make people suspect the security recipe”, he maintained.
Dakas, who is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) further stated that there was a need for government regulations on information dissemination, especially in the present era of hate speeches, fake news and the radicalization of the social media.
In his earlier address, the President of Nigeria Union of Journalist (NUJ), Comrade Chris Isiguzo, had called for the replacement of obsolete equipment at the Plateau State owned media organisations to improve their efficiency.
DAILY POST reports that the Plateau Publishing Corporation (PPC), publishers of the Nigeria Standard newspaper was established in the 1970s by a former Administrator of the old Benue-Plateau State, JD Gomwalk.
Isiguzo, who was represented by Mr Wilson Bako, the Vice President, Zone D of NUJ, expressed worry that the Nigeria Standard newspaper and Plateau Radio Television Corporation, who imprinted their names in the annals of history, by fast tracking development in the North and serving as pace setters in information dissemination have lost their glory.
“The PPC was the voice of the north but now they just produce 50 to 100 copies because they are still producing using ‘ghost machine’ which cannot print a paper ,” he said.
He urged the Plateau State Government to make deliberate efforts to restore the glory of its state owned organisations, instead of patronising other media organisations for its information dissemination.
On the issue of farmers/herders clashes, the President said journalists should give priority on the needs of Internationally Displaced Persons (IDPs), especially resettlement through rebuilding their homes.
