Nilly Imani, militarynewsng.com, Abuja
The new spokesman of the Nigerian Army, Brigadier General Onyema Nwachukwu on Wednesday assumed office with a promise to ensure better working relationship with the media.
Nwachukwu has also promised to partner with the media in achieving the objective of educating and informing the public, thereby bringing the society up to speed on the happenings in defence and security sector of the country.
He said he will bring his experience to bear in projecting the activities of the Nigerian Army with the objective of galvanising public goodwill and support for its activities.
Gen. Nwachukwu, who made this known when he took over from his predecessor Brigadier General Mohammed Yerima, at a brief ceremony held at the army headquarters, appealed to the media to use their medium to positively to shape public perception and opinion toward endearing national defence and security institutions to the public. He said this would harness the requisite elements of national power to confront our common adversaries.
He said: “It is an indisputable and very well established fact that the sword or gun cannot alone provide a panacea to the complex and multifaceted security challenges that characterise today’s world.
“I must therefore, make haste to say that the complex nature of these security challenges requires multi-disciplinary approach and a conglomerate of stakeholders of which the media is a very vital one.
“In decisively overcoming these challenges, the NA and the media must be partners in progress to surmount this security threats in order to berth the peace and tranquility we all earnestly desire as a people and nation.”
He thanked the Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor for the support given him during his tenure as the Acting Director Defence Information and the Chief of Army Staff, Major General Farouk Yahaya, for giving him the opportunity to speak and project the activities of the Nigerian Army.
Earlier in his address, the former director, Gen. Yerima said the Directorate of Army Public Relations under his watch had recorded commendable progress in the area of capacity building and logistics. Yerima, who commended the media for their cooperation while in office, equally commended the officers and soldiers of the directorate for their loyalty and support for him and appealed to them to extend the same support same to his successor.
