The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, Enugu State Command has called on the media practitioners to help in pushing for its constitutional recognition like other security agencies.
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 on Wednesday, 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 statutory recognition.
“You people should help us to ensure that the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps 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, 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 calls.
Speaking earlier, the new chairman of NUJ, Enugu State Council, Comrade 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 Corps but needed to strengthen the existing cordial relationship.
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 was done, they could easily hand over quacks to security agencies for prosecution.
Ogbuka lamented that there had been infiltration in the profession through the emergence of social media where anybody with a smart phone could claim to be a practitioner, pointing out that content creators often masquerade as journalists but that when the database is consummated, real journalists could now be known.