Military Media-Relations for Enhanced National Security

Military Media-Relations for Enhanced National Security
By Maj Gen Chris Olukolade

Presenting and discussing “Military – Media Relations for Enhanced National Security with the Nigerian Army (NA) in perspective,” is in line with one of my most cherished passions. Accordingly, some of the tips and advice mentioned here are the fallout of personal experience and exposure especially during my long years of active service in the Nigerian Army which culminated in my heading the Directorate of Defence Information during one of the most challenging periods in our nation’s history and Military Operations.

Indeed, information and its management remain ever so critical to all security and military campaigns or operations. Accordingly, facts and data about the operating environment must be gathered, analysed and duly reviewed from time to time in order to be able to give knowledge-based strategic support to both decision-makers and the public at large, in the interest of national security.

Crucial to meeting this need is the emplacement of clear plans and training on how to address public concerns and questions especially in the military’s drive to accomplish missions, more so as crises situations usually challenge organization to live up to their responsibility, credibility, reputation and public expectations. Moreover, public perception of the handling of any situation is developed through communication or lack of it by both government and the media. Agencies of government are therefore obligated to assist in developing the public’s perception by ensuring the flow of simple, direct and timely information especially in crisis situations.

The challenge of delivering on National Security continues to agitate the minds of policy makers in governments around the world. With familiar patterns of challenge to national security evolving and expanding over the years from the threats posed by external state actors and internal non-state actors to include challenges to national sovereignty, the military which is statutorily concerned with maintaining the territorial integrity of nations from external aggression, have found themselves increasingly involved in Internal Security Operations (ISOPs) in order to ensure the survival of their nations.

Hence, along with other agencies of state, the Nigerian Army (NA) has increasingly found itself involved in various operations as the military seeks to decimate criminal elements including terrorists, bandits, kidnappers, and other agents of violent crimes whose activities threaten the peace and security of the Nigerian state. Within the last two decades, the involvement of the Nigerian military in internal security operations has increased in ways that have impacted significantly on civilian-military relations with prominent elements in the civil society movements perceiving the military in negative light.

The NA by virtue of the nature and structure of its operations, which is often inevitably drawn into inescapable contact with members of public, has borne the lion share of such negative perception. This negative perception has moved over the years from distrust to open hostility to the extent that some individuals and communities covertly and overtly sabotage the army as it seeks to restore peace and order in their communities.

In this circumstance, there is an obvious need to establish and sustain a bridge between the Nigerian Army and the stakeholders of the nation it serves. There is therefore an increasing necessity for a better informed and supportive populace in order to foster the overall effectiveness of the NA’s efforts in National security.
Since the 1962, when the NA sent a small team to give Public Relations support as part and parcel of its contingent to the United Nations Peace Keeping Mission in Congo, the force has continued to demonstrate vital interest in professionally reaching out with information to the public especially through the media.

The team on return from Congo finally formed the nucleus of the unit that pioneered what has evolved to become today is Directorate of Army Public Relations (DAPR). Interestingly, the other services of the Armed Forces as well as paramilitary agencies have also taken a que and replicated the idea and system for reaching out with information to the public and the media.

Although, the NA has instituted various approaches to demonstrating its belief in Media Relations as a means of fostering better understanding and gaining public support or countering misinformation on its activities and operations, we should know to what extent its efforts in Media Relations can still be boosted to enhance its input to national security. How will the known values of good Media Relations intervene to enhance the NA as an agent of positive change as it continues to deliver service in the form of internal security operations for national security. This paper shall seek to interrogate issues involved in promoting Military – Media Relations towards enhancing national security efforts generally.

CLARIFICATION OF TERMS
Some of the terms employed in this paper can be clarified as follows:

Military Operations:
A military operation is “… a coordinated military action of a state in response to a developing security situation either within or out of the country. The actions are designed as a military plan to resolve the situation in the state’s favour or in the national interest of the deploying country. The operation may be of a combat or non – combat nature and is often referred to by a code name for security purposes.”

The Media:
The term media is multi–dimensional and it serves a certain purpose in this discourse. Principally, media is the plural of medium which refers to “content”. In its secondary sense, it is the act of creating and presenting accounts of events as they unfold. The media is the means by which news and information are communicated to the public through print and airwaves. The general usage now encompasses the television, radio, and press or print collectively. The mass media being a generic name is used to refer to all or any medium that has the capacity for sending messages and information across to a heterogeneous audience at the same time. In this category we have the radio, television, newspaper, magazines, films, the Internet, mobile phones, videogames etc.

New Media:
New Media refers to the crop of electronic based individualised or personalised group yet open means of communication made effective by the ownership and expert operation of uniquely personalised devices possessing the ability to capture voice and images (be still or video) and which rely on modern high tech communication platforms to broadcast or transmit such or other information to a broad audience usually without regards to geographical, social or even moral boundaries or boarders. It is otherwise referred to as the social media. It refers to all means new or otherwise through which information is designed and transferred from person to person. Most of those referred to as traditional media now incorporate elements of e-new-ness!

Media Relations:
This refers to the arrangement by an organisation to properly and professionally relate or interact with the media in order to secure accurate and responsible coverage of its activities. Ultimately the essence is to shape perception. Invariably, it is appropriately and an indisputably a Public Relations undertaking as a Professional duty and role. When the military engages in this, it is called Military – Media Relations.

Public:
Today, the domain called the public as far as information and communication is concerned, is no longer distinct and separate; everyone has become public and there is now no hiding place for either information or those communicating it. Every one of us in the world today is a common “villager” – one to the other – we have become neighbours because it has become harder for us to have secrets. This is our Global Village.

Public Relations:
Public Relations is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organization and its publics based on truth, openness and free access along with a dynamic process of dialogue and negotiation. In 1978, the World Assembly of Public Relations Association adapted what is known as the Mexican statement defining Public Relations as: “The art and science of analysing trends, Predicting consequences, counselling organisational leaders and implementing planned programmes”
While not discarding this position, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) in 2012, offered what it called its winning definition, which is now one of the most modern definitions of PR as it stated that: “Public Relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relations.”

National Security.
In very simple terms, National Security refers to the matters of safety of a nation against both the real and imminent threats against peace and stability to conduct lawful affairs and activities within its borders and territories. To Wikipedia, National security, is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government.

National security could still mean any defence plan by a nation which is good enough to successfully resist hostile or destructive action inside or outside a country. In broader terms, National security, according to Thoughtco.com, 2021, refer to the ability of the government to utilize military force to protect its citizen’s safety, economic welfare, and social institutions from the threat of attack by foreign or domestic invaders. It is about a country’s psychological freedom from fears that the state will be unable to resist threats to its survival and national values emanating from abroad or at home. Sometimes, it is also known as national defense, it is about the security and defense of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived as protection against military attack, national security is widely understood to include also non-military dimensions, including security from terrorism, minimization of crime, economic security, energy security, environmental security, food security, and cyber-security.

In the light of the foregoing, Nigeria’s major national security issues at the moment are often listed to include terrorism, banditry, farmer-herder crisis, communal conflicts, extremists militancy as well as the raging separatist violence especially in the south-east and rabid cultists violence among others .

To be Continue

*Maj Gen Chris Olukolade (Rtd), a former Director Defence Information, presented this paper at the Army Headquarters Department of Civil Military Affairs Media Chat held in Ibadan on September 20, 2023