MAKURDI – The Director-General (DG),
National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, has stated state the Agency would commence an enlightenment campaign to educate the people of the state on the five thematic areas of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration.
While he explained that NOA intends to carry out the campaign to communities and schools in all the 23 Local Government Areas (LGAs) as well as the 276 wards in Benue state, the DG, said the Agency plans to take the awareness campaign to about three million people in the state.
Issa-Onilu disclosed this during a Press Conference to flag-off the nationwide enlightenment campaign on five thematic areas of the Federal Government (FG), held at the Benue State Directorate of NOA located at the Federal Secretariat complex, Makurdi on Monday.
He further observed that apart from engaging the public to understand policies of government, the Agency aims at giving the public the opportunity to speak their minds, and also ask questions on the programmes and policies of government.
Represented at the occasion by Haruna Suleiman, Director, Finance and Accounts, Issa-Onilu, said that areas earmarked for the campaign include Value reorientation for students against sign out extreme practices; Flood mitigation; Government policies, programmes and activities; Identity project and national symbols, as well as Security consciousness in communities.
Other programmes slated for the enlightenment campaign that will all hold in the month of September, are a town hall meeting to held on Thursday; community engagements slated for 12th to 14th and schools’ visitation scheduled to hold from the 18th and 19th of September, 2025.
Suleiman who was flanked by the Zonal Director, North-Central, Dr Mrs Gondo Aluor and the NOA State Director, Mark Dewua Mark, explained that “As you already know, NOA has many mandates, key amongst these mandates, is the responsibility to sensitise the public on government policies, programmes and activities.
“In the current dispensation, we have re-invigorated our website; we have equally deployed an artificial intelligence persona which we call CLHEEAN on our website. This, in addition to our presence on all social media platforms, has enabled us to meet the information needs of especially the younger generation.
“In the next couple of weeks, the Agency will be physically engaging the public in the 36 states, the Federal Capital Territory and the 774 LGAs. This boots on the ground approach in various communities is aimed at enabling members of the public to speak their minds to government, ask questions and get answers on programmes and policies of government that they require further clarity on.”
Furthermore, the NOA, DG, pointed out that on the Social Safety Nets Expansion, “Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) have been done to over 2 Million households that are enrolled nationwide, Trader Moni and Farmer Moni is being introduced through the Government Enterprise and Empowerment GEEP programme – interest free loans of up to a maximum N100,000 and Farmer Moni of up to N300,000 will be provided.
“Renovation of 700 hundred rural schools (through the Renewed Hope Infrastructure Fund) is in the process of being undertaken nationwide as an intervention to improve the state of schools in the rural areas in Nigeria”,
“Many States have suffered severe effects of flood over the years. NiMet issues regular early warning advisories with 90% accuracy. We urge members of the public to look out for these advisories from NiMet and to please adhere to their advisories. It is important to note that there was a Presidential Flood Mitigation directive which also involved release of N3 billion per state in 2024 aimed at drainage clearance and relocation.
“Under the Renewed Hope Security Architecture, the Chief of Defence Staff had directed the establishment of specialised units of the Armed Forces aimed at enabling rapid response. The Armed Forces are deploying strategies aimed at tackling our diverse security challenges, some of the current strategies include the deployment of drones, armoured vehicles, surveillance technologies, over 15,000 new security personnel have been deployed nationwide.
“It is our intention that in all the states we will be carrying out the security awareness campaign, we will reach no less than 3 million Nigerians per state through media engagement, markets and motor park rallies, town hall meetings, advocacy visits to traditional and religious leaders, road shows and community engagements”, he stated.
In her remarks at the occasion, the Zonal Director, North-Central, Dr Mrs Gondo Aluor, noted that the Agency tries as much as possible to be persuasive in its approach with the people, aimed at convincing the public of the dividends to be reaped.
While she said that NOA promises to be effective, in its approach, Aluor, pointed out that the Tinubu administration was making positive interventions in all sectors through its policies in areas such as disaster management and insecurity, among other sensitive areas.
She also commended the Directorate in Benue for living up to its billings and for its relationship with the media, which has yielded positive results.
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