The director-general of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Lanre Issa-Onilu, says the agency will produce world-standard cartoons to promote national values among children.

Mr Issa-Onilu disclosed this at a news conference on national values charter and national anthem sensitisation in Yola on Friday.

The director-general, represented by NOA’s director of special duties and operations, David Akoji, said the agency was responsible for ensuring attitudinal change among Nigerians.

“We have also intervened in the cartoon sector to partner with NBC to ensure that 60 per cent of the cartoons our children watch will be indigenous cartoons that speak to our culture,” he said.

Mr Issa-Onilu said the agency had worked with the National Education Research Council, which is responsible for curriculum development, to ensure that citizenship studies were made compulsory for primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions.

According to him, all these are for young Nigerians to understand the national value charter and to help them shape their characters.

He urged parents to teach their children the value of care so that they can begin to be their brothers’ keepers.

“If we care for one another as citizens of this country, a lot of the problems that we are facing currently will go away,” he said.

The director-general also called on Nigerians to understand that the new national anthem speaks with the current situation in the country and needs to be taken seriously as the national symbol.

The acting state director of NOA in Adamawa, Richard Dangari, had earlier said the agency had developed the national values charter blueprint in response to the presidential declaration: “Let us build Nigerians to build Nigeria.”

“The contents of this charter are expected to be the values that will guide the behaviours of both the leaders and the citizens.

“This is because NOA believes that the most pressing challenge of our time is the attitudes of our citizens,” he said.

(NAN)