Governor of Nasarawa State Engineer Abdullahi Sule and the Minister of communication at an event organized by the institute of Strategic Development Communication of the Nasarawa State University Keffi, on Thursday laid emphasis on communication as a veritable tool in mitigating the impact of climate change.
The Governor who officially declared opened the 5th international conference with the Theme, “Communication , Climate Change and Resilience in Africa” said there was no other better time than now for the institute to come up with solution on how best to tackled the impact of climate change on humans, animals and plants, added that communication is the only way to respond to the disaster.
According to him, with proper communication on what is really happening across the globe, which can not be undermine, arriving at quick response to mitigate the menace becomes imperative.
Represented by the Director General ,Strategic communication and event management, Mallam Yakubu Lamai, he stressed that, ” Good governance goes with accuracy in communication,
“Today we are living in an age of information dissemination chatter where people are bombarded by countless conflicting messages from different conflicting sources so we need authoritative and authentic sources that has substance in an intellectual resilience ” he averred.
Highlighting the importance of communication in contemporary society on climate change, Minister of information and National orientation, Idris Mohammed, who was also represented by the Director General Nigeria Television Authority, Salihu Abdulhamid Dambos said, with communication it would make the populace know more about climate change as it is real.
He therefore called on Nigerians to be aware of the menace and take it very serious.He further buttress that with communication Nigeria and the world at large will be better inform and take steps that can mitigate the adverse negative impact of climate change which is already ravaging most part of the country and the world at large.
Corroborating the National Vice President , Nigeria Institute of Public Relations, Professor Emmanuel Dan daura in a separate interview told journalists that the international conference of the institute being the fifth in the series holds annually.
According to him this year’s conference view communication as pivotal in finding solutions to the current global trend unleashed as a result of climate change.
He further postulated that most of what we today witness as climate change is at time cause by human activities ” when you fall down trees you create room for storm because when the strong wind blows the effect is what we in nasarawa state witness in the previous weeks where roof were blown off and leaving some residence homeless. These are the negative impact of climate change and we are saying that communication is a tool to mitigating these ,because when a society is well informed the better.
“So we are stressing the need for Nigerians to adopt communication in the fight against the impact of climate changes. And as you can see our members are working on how to come up with a communique where solutions will be reach for transition to the nigerian government to have as a policy in mitigating climate change” Prof Dandaura added.
Earlier,the acting vice chancellor ,Nasarawa State University, professor Sallau Moddibo while welcoming the the participants to the international conference urged the inductees to be ambassadors of the NIPR .
He thanked the institute for finding Nasarawa State University keffi, worthy to hosting the international conference.
Highlight of the event include the induction of associate of NIPR and presentations of award to some imminent Nigerians who have distinguished themselves in service to their communities , the country and their fields of endeavours.
