Govt-owned media to be restructured--- Info Minister
(Nigeria) The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji
Lai Mohammed, has said that government-owned media organisations will be
restructured and reinvented in order to position them to compete favourably
with other broadcasters.
The minister gave the assurance when he received the
National Executive Committee of the Radio, Television and Theatre Arts Workers
Union, RATTAWU, on a courtesy visit in Abuja.
While responding to the issue raised by RATTAWU on the low
patronage of public media, he said the government media organizations have to
be retooled to provide compelling contents that will make them attractive to
viewers and advertisers.
“As long as we do not improve on the quality of NTA, and
other public media, we cannot compete with others. We need to restructure, we
need to reinvent NTA, FRCN and all our other publicly-owned media because that
is the only way we can compete favourably with other broadcasting outfits” Mohammed
said.
He reiterated that under his watch, no public media organisation
would deny access to the political opposition but emphasized that the media,
especially the broadcast outfits, should always adhere strictly to the
provisions of the Broadcasting Code in the performance of their duties.
The Minister assured that the Federal Government was
committed to the diversification of the economy through an organised and
coordinated approach to mainstream culture, tourism and agriculture into the
economy.
“Agriculture is one area where our diversification is going
to be felt but what we have done is that we are not just talking about
agriculture in the abstract. We are picking a few crops and a few items that we
intend to be self-sufficient in and these items are today taking a large chunk
of our foreign exchange. So in diversifying in agriculture, we are linking it
to the entire economy,” he said.
The minister told the RATTAWU that he has been studying the
minutes of their meetings with the government on improved remuneration package
for its members and promised to continue to engage the stakeholders in that
regard.
Earlier, the President of RATTAWU, Dr. Yemisi Bamgbose,
commended the Buhari administration for the successes it had recorded in the
fight against corruption and insurgency and urged the government to extend the
same vigour to revamping the nation’s economy.
He also spoke on the need to diversify the economy, improve
the remuneration of media workers, curb the instability in the leadership of
the public media and ensure their independence.
Dr. Bamgbose called for the review of the law that empowers
Local Governments to collect radio licence fees because, he said, the third
tier of government has no input in broadcasting.
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