The director-general of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mallam Kashifu Abdullahi, has flayed to role of digital media which he described as one of the key enablers of digital economy, in creating awareness for the growth and development of any nation.
Abdullahi said this when he hosted the commandant of the Nigerian Army School of Public Relations and Information Lagos at the agency’s corporate headquarters in Abuja.
He said part of the agency’s digital drive was the flagging off of the digital states’ training programme for 6,624 youths across 11 states of the country on digital literacy, content creation, productivity tools and digital marketing which could also be integrated to digital media.
He stated: “Social media has democratized access to everyone, which allows everyone to create contents. The world largest media Facebook produces not a single content, but we create the contents for them. We lack journalistic ethics in our operations. There is need to use resources and tools at our disposal to help educate and empower people in the profession on journalistic ethics to leverage on digital technology tool to do work better which will help cut down hate speech, fake news and misinforming the general public about certain issues.”
Abdullahi further stressed that digital media is one of the fastest growing components of digital economy in Nigeria which has a lot of potentials with the Nigerian market projected to reach about 30 billion US dollars by 2030 which will aid towards the creation of jobs and revenue flow for the country, thereby adding up to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the nation.
The DG applauded Nigerian Army School of Public Relations and Information for its relentless efforts toward educating journalists on the ethics of journalism in news reporting which, according to him, will bring about growth and development of the country.
The commandant of the Nigerian Army School of Public Relations and Information, Colonel Aliyu Yusuf commended NITDA for the various initiatives and programs it put in place towards the growth and development of Information Technology across the country that are impacting Nigerians in different ways.
He explained that the Nigerian Army School of Public Relations and Information was established in 2010 and is the only public relations and information school in the Sub-Saharan Africa, which trains public relations officers from the armed forces of Nigeria. The school has trained over 3,000 officers from the Navy, Airforce and Army to boost positive news reporting in the country.
Yusuf said the visit was to seek collaboration in the areas of Information Technology (IT) infrastructure and NITDA’s digital initiatives for the institution and also to key into the Federal Government’s digital economy drive for a better Nigeria and to change the way things are being done.
“Our institution is trying to see that journalism attain its pace in news reporting and style of reporting information to the general public among others and also cut down the activities of fake news for the growth of the country,” he added.
