Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of Russian visits NAN headquarters in Abuja
By Emmanuel Oloniruha
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday called for renewed partnership with the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Nigeria, to project positive perceptions about the two countries through its reportage.
The Managing-Director of the agency, Mr Buki Ponle, made the call while playing host to Mr Valery Shaposhnikov, Deputy Head of Mission (Trade and Economic Affairs) of the embassy, in Abuja.
Ponle said that NAN in the 80s had a good working relationship with Russian news agency, Information Telegraph Agency of Russia (ITAR-TASS), formerly known as Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS).
He identified ITAR-TASS as one of the prominent news agencies that NAN worked with in the past, with mutual benefits on both sides.
According to him, NAN was able to make Russia visible in the Nigerian news reports, while NAN also benefited from the training programmes by ITAR-TASS and coverage of events in Russia federation.
Part of the programmes also allowed our reporters to even come over to the federation for training and to cover events, but midway the exchange stopped, he said.
Ponle told the Deputy Head of Mission that NAN had written a letter to ITAR-TASS to resuscitate the exchange programme, but was yet to receive any response.
He also called for other areas of collaboration that could promote positive publicity for the two countries and boost NAN service delivery to its numerous clients.
We cannot afford not to be part of you (Russia) as a power block; not to feed our Nigerian audience and subscribers with activities going on in Russia.
Also, we want our own activities to be projected by Russia, as a news agency, so as to eliminate some of the negative perceptions about us and your country too.
When we give information, people change their attitudes and perceptions about events, individuals, country and in other areas too.
Of course, in the areas of culture, we can also influence and let people know what is going on over there.
This is what we want to do and we hope and believe that you will be willing facilitators to help achieve that goal, Ponle said.
The NAN managing-director said that the agency wanted to create more foreign offices, including reopening the one in Russia, when its financial situation improved.
He recalled that in the past, NAN had foreign offices in 10 countries including Moscow, Russia, but due to inadequate funding the number was reduced to three.
These, according to him were in Johannesburg, South Africa; Abidjan, Republic of the Cte dIvoire and New York.
In his response, Mr Shaposhnikov pledged to speed up the communication between NAN and ITAR-TASS towards resuscitating the initial exchange programme between the two agencies.
He said the Russian Embassy valued NAN and its service delivery in promoting the image of the two countries, including Nigerias important position on the Africa continent.
Nigeria is the giant of Africa and we must have a good working relationship. We should keep on building and strengthening this relationship.
At the embassy, we will do our best in resuscitating and activating the process, Shaposhnikov said.
NAN reports that Shaposhnikov was accompanied by the Press Secretary of the Embassy, Mr Ivan Lydkin.
Source: NAN News