Buhari’s minister asks editors to rein in bloggers, cyberhyenas

Information and Culture Minister, Lai Mohammed has called on the Nigerian Guild of Editors to get in charge and streamline the chaos social media and web 2.0 have brought into Nigeria’s media space.

“The editors’ guild should find a way of incorporating bloggers, social media publishers, and others into the system so they too can embrace the values of fairness, objectivity, and balance,” said Bayo Onanuga, managing director of the News Agency of Nigeria.

Onanuga stated this while representing the minister at the commissioning of the NGE’s national secretariat at Ikeja, Lagos, on Thursday.

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“The activities of these bloggers and others I once called cyber-hyenas have put the journalistic profession in bad light.”

Onanuga, publisher of the defunct TheNews, has personally had it rough with social media. He recently posted his opinion describing as exaggerated an anti-government take on the biting effect of recession on poor Nigerians.

The 72-hour backlashes after he posted his opinion on his Facebook page left really upset.

“No sane, decent person can truly condone the vicious band of assassins always on the prowl, looking for preys to desecrate and mutilate, all because the victims’ viewpoint does not tally with their jaundiced position,” he posted on Facebook Sept 9.

“I am sure that Zuckerberg will be mortified about how Nigerians have fouled his platform and Twitter. They are now nests of uncouth, ill-mannered, hate-filled Nigerians.”

As part of taking charge, especially after having its own headquarters, the guild, the minister also said, should ensure it oversees awards of media excellence in Nigeria.

He said, elsewhere, media professionals—not outsiders—preside over and grade journalists’ performance in order to reward excellence.