From Joseph Amedu, Lokoja
Gov Bello of Kogi State
The Director General of Kogi State Bureau of Information Services and Grassroots Sensitisation, Abdulkarim Abdulmalik has stressed the need for media aides in the state to be more proactive in their professional callings by setting goals on their jobs rather than just wait for things to happen and be on defensive.
“I want all of us to become agenda setters, we should stop being at the receiving end, we should stop being in the defensive”, he averred, while speaking at a media retreat organised for media aids of Local Government Administrators across the 21 Local Government Areas of the state.
Abdulmalik urged media aides to create their own programmes and remain busy at reporting government activities loud and wide enough to eliminate the chances of defending baseless accusations.
The information manager who commended Local Government Administrators in the state for their performance despite paucity of funds also said their media aides had done well in new media reportage; saying why it seemed they were not doing enough was because they never veered into the traditional media.
While urging them not to limit their performance to the new media he also encouraged those who were non-professionals to acquire prerequisite training to enhance their performance in accordance with the ethics of journalism and practice.
To achieve this, he told them to create synergy among themselves and with other media aides and organisations in the state, explaining that they would get the basics of journalism by so doing.
Earlier, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs in the state, Engr. Abubakar Ohere charged the media aides on doing more on reportage of State Government activities at the grassroots while also demanding their total loyalty to their employer.
The media aides described the retreat as enriching and called for adequate funding of the information department at the local government level.
