DG NBMA seeks more collaboration with media

THE Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA ), Dr Rufus Ebegba, has called for more collaboration between the agency and the media.

The DG made the call when representatives of some media organisations visited the agency in Abuja to interact with him on the status of Biosafety in Nigeria and to felicitate with the agency as it marked its four years of establishment.

He said the Nigerian media had great roles to play in ensuring the development of the nation.

He urged the media to partner  government agencies to ensure that government policies were  realised for the benefit of Nigerians.

He said, “The NBMA is one of the best regulatory agencies in Africa as other countries in West Africa look up to the agency in order to draw up their Biosafety policies”.

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Ebegba  noted that journalists were the gate keepers of information and that it was their responsibility to ensure that factual and verified information was  passed to the public.

During interactive session,  various representatives of the media organisations who were predominantly Bureau Chiefs, called for more stakeholder engagement in order to enlighten and accurately educate the public on the activities and mandate of the agency.

They commended the brilliant work of the agency and its giant strides in ensuring the attainment of its mandate that is ensuring that only safe Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) were  allowed into the Nigerian market and assured that they would  stand by the ethics of the media in reporting only factual information.

The delegation was taken on facility tour of the agency’s remodelled state-of-the-art Genetically Modified Detection and Analysis Laboratory and were impressed at the world class equipment and manpower in the laboratory.