Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD) has advised Journalists in Kaduna State to avoid hate speech in ensuring that the 2019 general elections are peaceful in the state.
The Lead facilitator, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD) Dr. Ahmed Yassin gave this advised in a paper presentation at a one- day workshop on ‘Conflict Sensitive Reporting Workshop For Journalists in Kaduna State held on Friday, organized by the Kaduna State Peace Commission (KAPECOM) in partnership with Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue on understanding hate speech and conflict sensitive reporting perspective from Kenya.
Dr. Ahmed Yassin said that journalists should avoid reporting stories that will bring about conflict in the state.
According to him, “Understanding hates speech, inciteful, derogatory speech should be avoided.
In her opening remarks, Executive Vice Chair Person and Chief Executive Officer of Kaduna State Peace Commission (KAPECOM), Mrs. Priscilla Yachat Ankut charge journalists to promote peace in their reporting.
According to her, “I know that we will not regret the time spent here, we would have a successful deliberation. We are here to learn and I hope at the end of the day, our contributions will prove those predicting doom during the elections in Kaduna State wrong.
“We will make sure the elections come and go and we don’t lose any lives, we don’t destroy property in Kaduna,” she admonished.
She said that KAPECOM has been working in Kaduna for one year, with core mandate of promoting peaceful coexistence in Kaduna State. “We are getting more organised and systematic in our approach as we understand the environment better.
“We have met political parties in December and asked if they can conduct themselves peacefully and we got them to accept and behave themselves, we decided to form a small committee to monitor the campaigns to see who is defaulting,” she said.
