Clamp down on Social Media now! “It is now an avenue for abusing government,” – David Mark

Senate President, Senator David Mark, Thursday, called for a check on the menace of the social media on the Nigerian society, saying that people now use them to demean their leaders.

Mark said the need to check the social media became necessary, as they do not have the avenue for retraction of whatever they had done.

Senator Mark, who spoke in Umuahia, Abia State, while declaring open a two-day retreat for Senate Press corps, explained that the media has come to stay, as part of the process of governance in the country, since the return of democratic government in 1999 and performing its social responsibility of checking the excesses of the leaders.

Senator Mark, however, urged reporters to always cross check their facts before writing so as not to mislead the people, who depend on them to know what goes on around them.

The Senate President cited as examples varied figures usually quoted by various media in times of tragedies, saying that the figures were always inconsistent.

Describing the media as one of the stabilizing factors in the scheme of things, Mark cautioned that “we need to change our attitude on how we report things about our country, and we should emulate the foreign reporters, who never report negative things about their countries.”