NSCDC seeks Constitutional recognition, partners media to fight crime

The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, Enugu State Command has called on the media practitioners to ensure that they are given constitutional recognition like other security agencies in their reportage and articles.

The NSCDC Commandant for Enugu State, Dr. Elijah Etim Willie, who made the appeal when the newly elected executive officers of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, Enugu State Council paid courtesy visit on the Commandant, pointed out that other security agencies are looking down on them because they have not been given constitutional backing.

Willie said that as the Constitution Review is going on in the country, the media should help them tell the National Assembly to give them the statutory recognition.

“You people should help us to ensure that National Security and Civil Defence Corp is recognized by the Constitution. The pen is mightier than the sword and we know the power of the media. Through your write ups and programmes, we can get the required constitutional recognition,” he averred.

Promising to work in synergy with journalists in the jobs, the Commandant disclosed that when he assumed office last year, there were 17 divisions but he created additional 20 divisions, thereby bringing the divisions to 37 and at the same increased the area commands from the initial 3 to 7.

The Commandant who said that they now prosecute suspects in court, pointed out that they have been fighting vandals of public and private property in the state.

He urged the journalists to call on them any time there is a threat to their lives or to their profession, assuring that they will be quick to answer such distress call.

Speaking earlier, the new chairman of NUJ, Enugu State Council, Comr. Obinna Ogbuka, said that they embarked on the courtesy visit to seek more cooperation and synergy with the security agency.

Ogbuka said that they had been relating with the Corp but needed to strengthen the cordial relationship that had been existing between them.

He said that NUJ has been making efforts to weed out fake and quack journalists who have been trying to bastardize the journalism profession by introducing a data base where genuine journalists could be identified.

He said that when this is done, they can easily hand over quacks to security agencies for prosecution.

Ogbuka lamented that there has been infiltration in the profession through the emergence of the social media where anybody with smart phone can claim to be a practitioner, pointing out that content creators often masquerade as journalists but that when the data base is consummated, real journalists could now be known.

He pointed out that some fake journalists put Press emblem on their vehicles to outwit security agents but noted that NUJ has an emblem as well as media organisations, adding that journalists are not identified through Press but through their identity cards, NUJ and their media organisations’emblems and stickers.