By KEMI KASUMU
“Media is the oxygen that terrorists and bandits use to breathe. When otherwise reputable platforms like BBC can give their platform to terrorists showing their faces as if they are Nollywood stars, it is unfortunate.”
The Federal Government of Nigeria has, reportedly, said that it will sanction the BBC and Trust Tv for airing respective documentaries glorifying and fueling terrorism, banditry in the country.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, disclosed this in an interview with newsmen in Abuja on Thursday, according to media reports, although The DEFENDER’s a call and whatsapp message to the Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Office of the Minister, Mr. Segun Adeyemi, seeking confirmation and further clarification was yet to be responded to as at the time of filing this report.
Popular broadcasting journalist, Kadaria Ahmed, has expressed dismay about how some Journalists and, particularly, BBC in Nigeria are promoting terrorism in an article published earlier and titled, “The BBC in Nigeria – Between reporting and propagating terror”.
Kadaria said, “When Communications Professor at the University of Toronto Mahmoud Eid coined the term Terroredia, in his book Exchanging Terrorism Oxygen for Media Airwaves, Eid argues that there is now a ‘relationship between terrorists and media professionals in which acts of terrorism and media coverage are exchanged, influenced, and fuelled by one another.’ Since it was written 7 years ago, it would appear the case Eid was trying to make is now quite self-evident, especially in Nigeria where increasingly, propaganda videos and statements by terror groups as well as features on terror leaders are finding their way into mainstream media.”
Just before she said, “The public interest argument seems to have been misunderstood, some may even say misrepresented, to enable sensationalist reporting that is very unlikely to be allowed on screens in the United Kingdom. By not upholding the same standards as they would uphold in the UK, in their work in Nigeria, the BBC Africa Eye producers in their latest documentary titled ‘The Bandits Warlords of Zamfara’ have provided a global platform to terrorists and can be accused of becoming an accomplice to terror in the name of reporting it.”
Her worries were coming on the heels of some expressed concerns whereby media, particularly foreign television network like BBC, granting airing audience to terrorists was described as one of the ways international conspiracy was being to brought to bear on the much mouthed, looming collapse of Nigeria. They complained that foreign media’s audience to the terrorists was done in bad spirit, to the extent that they were allowed to create panic and impression like there is no government in the land.
But Alhaji Mohammed said the Federal Government is aware of the unprofessional documentary by the BBC, Africa Eye, where interviews were granted to bandit warlords and terror gangs, thereby promoting terror in the country.
