The Governor of Kogi State, Ahmed Ododo has urged young people in the state to focus on positive narratives in their engagement on social media.
The Governor gave the charge in a message to a one-day training programme in Lokoja organised by the Ododo Media Centre for media influencers and content creators as part of activities marking the first 100 days in office of the governor.
Represented by his Special Adviser on Media, Ismail Isah who declared the programme open, enjoined the participants to go beyond amplifying faultlines of the people and concentrate on issues that unite citizens of the state, stressing that the real spokespersons of the government are the people outside the government who go out of their way to project policies and programme of the government.
The Governor said that the training was aimed at building the capacity of persons helping to promote activities of government to have the knowledge of new developments and be able to train more social media users to amplify government programmes and policies.
He explained that this will in turn serve as an effective feedback mechanism so as to build a robust engagement between the government and the people who own the government.
More importantly, he noted that the workshop would skill up the capacity of the younger generation in digital information communication strategy while promoting good governance.
While encouraging the participants to go outside their ranks to engage people of diverse views, he implored the content creators to be involved in community engagement to communicate impactful projects of government to their various audiences.
According to the Special Adviser on Media, “Governance is about the people and you have seen that this government has connected with the people. Just yesterday, the Governor was in Omala to visit the communities recently attacked by assailants. Immediately on his return, the Governor summoned a security meeting to see to the actualization of the Forward Operation Base in the area. So, the Ododo-led administration cannot be short on policies and programmes.”
The Special Adviser therefore urged the participants to be civil, kind and responsible while engaging in the social media space.
Some of the participants, Munirat Isah who is also a writer and a content creator, Garba Adeiza AbdulMalik an advocate of good governance and Michael Dele Rotimi said the training was apt and would be impactful on their engagement on social media.
The training which took place both physically and virtually drew participants from diverse sectors across the 21 LGAs of Kogi State.
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