Invest in the Media: A Call to Northern Elites
By Adnan Mukhtar Tudunwada
POLITICS DIGEST – It is time for our people to invest in the media. We don’t have a national media that can promote and protect the agenda of the North.
While southerners are busy investing in serious media business; we are investing on local radio stations.
In Kano, we have more than ten private radio stations; an unhealthy competition that is killing the radio station business in the state.
We have enough radio stations, we don’t need another for now. We are suppose to invest in building television stations and online newspapers like Channels, TVC, AIT and Arise.
Tell me any TV Station in the North that can compete favourably with the aforementioned? We only have Arewa24 that cannot feature a serious program that focuses on national issues like the Journalist hangout. Unfortunately, it is featuring the Labarina series, Kwana Casain and Dadin Kowa. What values are these programs adding to us, as a people? Nothing!
Even the Liberty TV that started operation before Channels, TVC and Arise is not doing well, may be because of poor patronage of our people. It is owned by Ahmed Tijjani Ramalan, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress.
Not Liberty alone, we have the DITV Alheri Radio Kaduna thatis owned by Hakeem Baba Ahmed, a PhD holder and politician. But all are not being patronised by us and this led to poor operations of the stations.
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Tell me if Liberty and DITV can compete with Channels or Arise TV? We have a long way to go in the business.
We have seen their propaganda during the EndSARS protest and today we are witnessing the killings of innocent northerners in the South and the leaders of this region are silent. What are our governors doing?
This is why I fault Kwankwaso’s established Nasara Radio. I can’t see it relevance compared to the current situation in Northern Nigeria. We don’t need local radio stations for now.
The Philanthropists and business moguls of this region need to invest in the media for the interest of promoting and protecting the interest of Northern Nigeria. Are the Dangote’s and BUA’s that we have patronising our media business?
When it comes to newspaper; we only have Daily Trust, it is the only national surviving paper that is owned by Northerners. The rest are already dead.
In this digital era we find ourselves and the emergence of online newspapers, the south have already beaten us in this aspect; while they have the Sahara Reporters , Premium Times, TheCable etc that are making serious impact to national discourse and development journalism; we have only two online newspapers that are growing gradually–Daily Nigerian and PRNigeria–while the rest are just after the quarterly retainership given to them by corporate organizations and government agencies but not at all serious in the business.
It is time for us to invest in the media business seriously for the interest of reporting the factual current happenings of our people and our region.
*Adnan Tudunwada is a journalist and University lecturer, he can be reached via [email protected]*
