Most of the screaming headlines in national dailies and online media that paint gory pictures of the security situation in Nigeria are nothing but exaggerations, according to Bayo Onanuga, the special adviser to President Bola Tinubu on media.
Onanuga is calling on the media to tone down the rate at which they paint the country as an uninhabitable place to the international audience.
“Media reporting about cases of kidnapping, communal killings and isolated terrorism acts must show some moderation by not giving the impression that all Nigerians no longer sleep with two eyes closed or are not safe in going about their day-to-day business,” he said.
According to the government official, though such reports “give the impression that our country is under siege by criminals or that every nook and cranny of our country is under their stranglehold”, Nigeria is wanting in the list of top ten countries with robbery and kidnapping epidemic by the World Population Review.
“Kidnapping in Nigeria is 0.334 per 100,000,” Onanuga said, urging the media to step up the game in reporting the successful counter-insurgency operations of the Nigerian military.
“Their efforts, most often understated, have made our country safer, at least, than South Africa or the United States, where 44,310 people were killed last year in gun violence,” he noted.
—Ezinwanne Onwuka reports for TruthNigeria from Abuja.
