Notable public figures Thursday expressed discordant tunes on what should be the government and policy makers attitude to bring sanity to the Social media operations in the country.
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They spoke at the 4th Anniversary Lecture organised by Penpushing Media, titled, Social Media Regulation:Insecurity and Elections Accountability in Nigeria which took place at the Marques Event Centre,Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta.
In her contribution,the Regional Director for Ford Foundation for West Africa,Dr Chichi Aniagolu-Okoye,spoke on the need for self- regulation by media outfits so as to pull the nation from the brink of the precipice in which it has found itself as a result of the level of governance,state of the economy and other social vices .
She said that every news medium role and reportage of issues and events has its own side effect on the state of the nation hence, the need for restraint and self control in disseminating news.
In his own remark,Police Public relations Officer of the Ogun State Police command,Muyiwa Aladejobi, said that in as much as the media plays a very crucial role in good governance,there is a need to regulate it’s activities through exant laws in place but disagreed on banning of social media.
According to him,laws in place should be applied to bring erring publications to book .
Said he,” Journalism is very key in good governance and you can’t succeed without media and good governance.”
He, however, said that the social media is easier to enforce as those who erred against exant laws can be prosecuted instead of a blanket ban.
He said further that regulations such as effective monitoring of reportage can be done by government agencies in order to conform with best practises in reportage of issues instead of blanket regulation.
In his own remark,a former governor of Ogun state,Otunba Gbenga Daniel,contended that the emergent social media has freed the government and public from what he described as the “locked down attitude” of the regular media which he said never gave fair hearing to the different parties adding,”when we are in government most of their judgements are not correct”.
He contented that the advent of social media has given fair hearing and balance reportage to political players as against what obtains when the regular media was dominant in the country.
He is however of the view that rather than regulation,social media could be monitored in order to ensure fair and balanced reportage of issues and events.
