Razaq Bamidele
A group, the Journalists International Forum for Migration (JIFORM), has been charged to use its platform to source for Nigerian medical experts across the globe to send in their professional advice, research works and other academic documents towards fighting the Coronavirus pandemic in the country.
The Public Relations Officer of the Nigerian Immigration Service, Deputy Comptroller of Immigration, Sunday James gave the charge in a lecture during an online summit organised by JIFORM, on Saturday.
Our Correspondent who was part of the Summit reported that the online summit was necessitated by the need for members of JIFORM to update their knowledge as purveyors of information, and reinforce their skills as journalists covering migration, despite the social distancing and stay-at-home directives of the Federal government.
In a paper entitled Migration and Containment of COVID-19, DCI Sunday James observed that Coronavirus was a common enemy that can be eliminated by time, resources, expertise, and full adherence to international best practices.
He therefore charged JIFORM to use its widely read platform to start a media campaign to lure medical specialists abroad back home to support the efforts of their home country.
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The NIS spokesman also advocated the need for an ECOWAS Corona Bonds for the sub-region where west African heads of governments would team up to address the spread of COVID-19 by mopping up resources and materials to help out the countries in the sub-region.
Also contributing to the Summit, the Zonal Commander of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, (NAPTIP), Lagos Zonal Command, Mr Daniel Atokolo observed that no country can survive with the huge cost of human trafficking and irregular migration to the depletion of its human resources.
According to him, the scourge was a clear and present danger that urgently demands all hands to be on deck, and calls for the deployment of resources of both society and government to reverse it.
President of JIFORM, Mr Ajibola Abayomi in his welcome remarks earlier, has called on all members of the Forum to stand in solidarity with their various nations at this trying moment, and urged them to discourage the circulation of fake news and other sensitive editorial materials that were not in the interest of nation building and welfare of the citizenry.
