The Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria, Malam Ali Muhammad Ali, has vowed to go hard on individuals and organisations stealing the agency’s contents and intellectual materials.
Ali stated this during an interactive session with members of staff of the agency nationwide via zoom in Abuja.
NAN reports that the zoom meeting was held to commemorate 100 days of Ali as Managing Director of the agency.
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Ali was appointed as NAN’s Managing Director on October 19, 2023 by President Bola Tinubu.
He said: “In the last 100 days, we have been trying to block leakages in our editorial contents and finances and we discovered some shocking details.
“There is this challenge where people steal our products; people who have worked and reached the zenith of their career in the agency, trusted, but are sabotaging the agency.
“We are going to do something about them.
“No one will tolerate this situation.
“We will not allow people to steal our products again or give out passwords to others to steal our products and eat our sweat.
“Unfortunately, there are collaborators within, but we will not relent until we fish them out for necessary actions.”
Ali added that notwithstanding the challenges, the last 100 days under his watch had witnessed tremendous positive changes, transforming the agency to an enviable height in the comity of global news agencies.
On technology, he said when he assumed office, the social media handles of NAN were nothing to write home about.
According to him, the agency did not have a TikTok account, while the Instagram and Facebook accounts were not updated.
He said since he took over, all the agency’s social media platforms, including its X handle, became more active.
He underscored the need to rejig the funding model of the agency, which he said has not been sustainable.
In addressing this, he said in addition to a management retreat recently held in Kaduna State, there would be an expanded retreat for senior officers to set targets for the agency.
Ali said: “Under our watch, we will not encourage a situation where individual interest would supersede collective interest because we see ourselves as very serious minded leaders.”
He recalled that in the last 100 days, he represented NAN in international events and observed that the agency is well respected in the global schemes of affairs, urging staff to leverage on that.
While encouraging workers to up their games in the discharge of their duties, the NAN boss said the agency will continue to encourage cross fertilisation of ideas and mentorship.
He appreciated the agency’s workers for their support in making the 100 day eventful and fruitful and assured them of greater days ahead.
NAN reports that some of the workers, who spoke at the event, lauded the effort of the MD and management team in welfare, provision of work tools, and planned staff training to reposition the agency to meet up with the global trend of media business.
