The National Orientation Agency (NOA) and Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) have expressed their commitment to sustain synergy on effective communication of government policies, programmes and activities in line with their respective mandates.
The NOA Assistant Director, Press, Mr Paul Odenyi, said in a statement in Abuja that the management of the agencies said this when NOA Director General, Garba Abari led its management to visit the Director General of the NTA, Yakubu Mohammed in Abuja.
Abari enumerated several areas of cooperation between the two government agencies in the past.
According to him, more collaborations are needed at this period because of the increasing level of insecurity, lack of patriotism, corruption and general degeneration of values among the youths of the country.
“For him, the three key areas requiring immediate joint execution include airing of video skits and other messages that teach morals, unity and patriotism.
“Others are participation in a project, along with other stakeholders, to increase the level of community vigilance and neighbourliness; and finally ensuring a more friendly disposition to the NOA while implementing NTA’s commercialisation policy.
“As a citizen engagement organisation, NOA relies on several partners to achieve its mandate, but I can attest that NTA has been most useful to NOA in its more than 30 years of existence,” he said.
He, however, said ”we need to expand the frontiers and that is why we are seeking the assistance of the NTA, with its reach, to make it easier to bring the message of development to more people in the country.”
Responding, the DG of NTA, who expressed delight at the visit of NOA management to NTA, said his organisation was alive to the responsibility of helping government agencies succeed.
“We will work with an organisation like the NOA, whose mandate, principally, is to communicate government policies and programmes in a manner that enables citizens buy into these initiatives.
“Working together, we can achieve more for the good of our country and its people.
“Though, we have partial commercialisation, however, it does not blind us from our roles and corporate social responsibility. Commercialisation should not be an impediment.”
“In order to strengthen the new level relationship, the two agencies are to commit themselves to a memorandum of understanding,” he said. (NAN)