Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON)

“Taking Broadcasting Back to its Credible Roots”

Address By The Chairman Of Broadcasting Organisation Of Nigeria (BON) Mallam Abubakar B. Jijiwa On The Occasion Of The Opening Ceremony Of The 47th General Assembly Of Broadcasting Organisation Of Nigeria (BON) Holding At The Meridian Ibom Hotel And Golf Resort, Uyo On The Wednesday, April 23, 2008.

Theme: “Broadcasting for Credibility and Integrity in Corporate Governance”

Protocols
I am particularly delighted to welcome you to the 47th General Assembly of Broadcasting Organization of Nigeria(BON) holding in uyo, thirteen years after the last General Assembly was held in the capital from November 9to 10 1995.

Akwa Ibom State was then at its infancy, under an unelected military administration which was then pre-occupied with the provision of basic infrastructure for the new state.

I an delighted to note that since my arrival in uyo, it is clear that the state capital has been transformed from what was then a sleepy divisional town into a thriving, bustling, commercially- enterprising and socially-active city with an appreciable infrastructure, vast network of well-paved roads, beautiful buildings and indeed, an emerging skyline under a democratically elected and accountable government. From a backwater town of the south-east famous for its ubiquitous commercial motor cyclists and dusty roads, uyo is now a growing hub, indeed the city to beat in the sub-region.

For this 47th General Assembly, our theme “Broadcasting for Credibility and Integrity in Corporate Governance”, was chosen to deliberately highlight the new global drive for credibility and integrity in cooperate governance, anchored on time-honored and long-cherished ideals of accountability, transparency and excellence in all facets of our public and private lives.

Time was, when in the history of this country, broadcasting provided the bulwark and platform for the propagation and sensitization of the citizenry on such well intended value orientation ideals and, our desire at BON is to return broadcasting to its credible roots.

Today in this country, accountability and good governance has now gained credence through the impressive activities of public institutions set up by law for attainment of these ideals such as the EFCC and the ICPC as well as several other regulatory and enforcement agencies that were actually in existence but unable to showcase their potentials until they were through the coming on board of refreshingly new leaderships, such as Prof. Dora Akunyili of NAFDAC. The increasingly popular public hearing of the National Assembly and the various revelations coming out of them indicates that issues of credibility and integrity in corporate governance will continue to be in the front-burner of our public policy realm.

BON will give fresh impetus to this yawning aspiration of the polity for common good by taking broadcasting to its credible roots where advocacy and mobile mobilization will have to take the center-stage.

As media practitioner, therefore, our duty is to sustain the new momentum for credibility by ensuring adequate reportage of issues of transparency, accountability, and good corporate governance through value-orientation of our people. In other words, we are taking broadcasting back to its credible roots through the infusion of positive value by using individuals and institutions that have made immense contributions in their fields of endeavour as role models.

During the two-days Assembly, we will also consider several other issues central and critical to moving the broadcasting industry to the next level. Broadcasting cannot sincerely hope to return our cherished industry to its old credible roots unless we consider the urgent need for broadcasting stations to transit from analogue to digital technology. With the global deadline of the analogue-digital transition just around the corner in 2015, our colleague, the DG Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC) will be discussing with us in this assembly in greater details on how stations could achieve this digital transfer by 2012, which is the year of the Federal Government of Nigeria has fixed our own cut-off date, three years ahead of the 2015 global deadline.
This Assembly will consider the obsolescence and the decadence of broadcasting equipment especially the public-owned Radio and Television stations, as most of them are in state of complete disrepair. We cannot restore the broadcasting industries golden glory and return it to the credible roots unless the media owners especially the state and the federal government properly fund their electronic media establishments.

On this score, I wish on behalf of all BON members to commend one of our respected members, DAAR Communications Plc for its highly successful Initial Public Offer (IPO), the first broadcast media in Africa to achieve this feature With proper funding, it is my believe that broadcasting could return to its credible roots. The capital market option as a veritable tool for the capitalization of broadcast media remains an excellent potential for our members, especially those in the private sector to exploit. Daar communication Plc has courageously shown the way and other should follow.

This General Assembly will also critically appraise the problem of staggering department owned Radio and Television stations by mainly advertising agencies, which has become the ritual of our quarterly meetings. It has to remain a recurring decimal because the issue of the huge industry department is at the very heart of our survival as Radio and Television stations. We remain confident that with the on-going reconciliation process, brokered by APCON, with collaboration of ADVAN and AAAN through the head of Advertising Sectoral group (HASG), we hope to tackle this issue head on.

This forum will also review our training and capacity-building programmes, with a view to ensuring that staff of our member station are well trained to meet the modern challenges of their professional duties, but not limited to information technology, analogue-to-digital migration, creative programming formats, latest tools for news gathering etc. BON’s ultimate desire is that we should have a broadcast industry in Nigeria with a well-trained workforce that would be capable of taking broadcasting back to its roots.

We also intend to review our on-going collaborative ventures geared towards jointly transmitting key global sporting, cultural and economical events. In this regard, the Assembly will conclude arrangements for the joint transmission of the forthcoming Beijing Olympics Games, 2009 FIFA Youth Football tournament being proposed to be hosted in Nigeria and 2010 South Africa World Cup. Coming from our superlative successes in previous collaboration especially the English Premiership League (EPL), 2006 World Cup, 2008 African Cup of Nations, we are confident that this tournaments will be jointly transmitted under the BON platform the satisfaction or all: a win-win situation for members. This is the tandem with that singular event that led to the formation of BON in 1973, namely the All-Africa Games held in Lagos that year and a practical demonstration of our quest to take broadcasting back to its credible roots.

While collaborating effort in sporting and cultural events is an enviable source of pride to BON’s continued corporate existence, I wish to caution members on the urgent need for a paradigm shift for member-stations to look closely core professional challenges of our industry. We must therefore not leave this General Assembly without a new Akwa Ibom Declaration that spells out a clear road map for members to have a structured and institutionalized framework that will address critical issues of joint production and co-production; personnel, equipment, news and programmes exchange; joint training and capacity building; ensuring harmony in our advertising drives etc, among member stations. To this end, a Task Force will be constituted to ensure the immediate implementation of these highly-exciting but challenging area of professional excellence in the industry. This paradigm shift will definitely give our industry the quantum leap necessary to restore up dignity and take us back to our credible roots.

May I use this forum to commend the government for His Excellency, Mr. Godswill Akpabio for his immense contributions to the development of Akwa Ibom State during his ten months administration. We pray that the laudable achievements of His Excellency in the upliftment of the lives of the people will be sustained.

We fervently appeal to his Excellency to ensure that the state-own broadcasting outfit are properly funded to enable them achieve their mandates, and specifically Akwa Ibom Broadcasting corporation, so that it could be among the early members of the league of digitally-complaint public stations.

On behalf of delegates to the Assembly, I wish to thank the government and the people of Akwa Ibom State for their immense hospitality and elaborate effort to ensure the comfort of delegates for the 47th General Assembly. I want to single out the Director-General in charge of parastatals in Akwa Ibom Ministry of Information, Mrs. Mercy Otu, who has been a very active BON member for the last ten years and who was also the chairperson of zone F for her support and untiring effort as head of the LOC for this General Assembly.

We will restore broadcasting to its credible roots.

Thank you and God bless.

ABUBAKAR B. JIJIWA