MEDIA professionals and the general public have been urged to stop glorifying crime and negative news.
A former dean of the Faculty of Education, University of Lagos, Professor Murtala Bidmos, made this appeal in a lecture at a workshop on capacity building and integration of knowledge, organised by the National Association of Teachers of Arabic and Islamic Studies (NATAIS), Lagos State Education District I, held in Lagos during the week.
Bidmos blamed resurgence of crime and other negative events on preoccupation of the media with crime and negative events at the expense of positive developments.
“Most of the people involved in drugs, secret cult and other crimes picked it from programmes they watch on television and what they read in the media”, he lamented.
Bidmos, therefore, challenged the participants to refocus their energy by reading materials and watching programmes that promote morality and spirituality.
He also charged the participants to endeavour to discover and develop their capacities to better themselves to benefit Islam and the society at large.
“Everybody has skill and capacity. The problem is how to discover them and train oneself to develop the capacity,” he said.
He identified writing of books in Arabic and Islamic studies, Arabic translation as some of the skills the participants could embrace.
He also charged teachers to integrate morality and spirituality into their teachings in order to promote well-adjusted students.
The chairman of District I of NATAIS, Mr Jimoh Oyekanmi, said the workshop was organised because of the need to improve the skills set of teachers of Islamic Studies and Arabic Language to enhance their ability to impart knowledge to the students.
Participants at the workshop lamented discrimination against female students putting on hijab by the West African Examinations Council during data capturing for the examination.
According to them the female students were prevented from data capture unless they removed their hijab.
They, therefore, appealed relevant authorities to do something to prevent denial of rights of female Muslim students.
NATAIS, Education District I, is made up of Agege, Alimoso and Ifako Ijaye local government areas of Lagos State.
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