Northern owners of private Radio and Television stations operating under the umbrella of Northern Broadcast Media Owners Association (MBMOA) have decried insecurity in the region hence its decision to mount a people-centered media advocacy campaign against alleged incompetent governance.
This, it said, is aimed at combating the crippling menace of banditry, kidnapping and other forms of criminality that had engulfed many parts of the north and other parts of the country in general.
According to the group, the media advocacy campaign seeks, on one hand, to educate, mobilize and engage affected victims and communities to put up necessary responses required to push back the nefarious activities of bandits and criminals.
On the other hand, the campaign aims at interrogating the availability, workability or otherwise, of efforts by elected governments in the region towards fulfilling their primary constitutional obligations to the people especially in the protection of lives and property including guaranteeing the safety of agricultural ventures and other business investments.
This was the main subject of an address by MBMOA’s acting chairman, Alhaji Abdullahi Yelwa, (Ajiyan Yauri) at a well-attended world press conference held on Wednesday at Hawthorn Suites in Garki-Abuja. He spoke on behalf of the chairman and former Minister of State for Information and Communications, Alhaji Dazuki Nakande, owner of Unity FM in Jos, who was said to be indisposed.
Alh. Yelwa lamented the region had slipped into the Hobessian state of nature where human life is short and brutish hence the urgent need for his association as media practitioners to collaborate with other critical stakeholders and retrieve the north from the jaws of near-death.
‘’Our country has been engaged in the fight against the scourge of terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, out of school children and drug abuse.
Added to these myriad of challenges is the problem of poverty and underdevelopment. As media practitioners in the region, we have been in the eye of the insecurity storm as we are daily confronted with the grim and ugly consequences of these vices on the lives of our people’’, he said.
According to him, his association as gate-keepers of news had continued to receive daily reports from reporters on how hundreds villages and communities were randomly attacked and out-rightly sacked by gunmen and hoodlums abducting thousands of innocent people in the process.
‘’We daily report news of bandits writing demand notices to helpless communities for ransoms or payment for permission to go to their farms. This is not acceptable. In some cases, we hear of summary executions of abductees for failure to pay ransom to secure their freedom.
‘’To make matters worse, we hear elected governors throw their hands up in utter despair and frustrations admitting and even confessing that some parts of their communities are no longer under their control. This is sad’’, he said.
‘’The Northern media have been at the helm of reporting these challenges. Some of our members have indeed been victims of the insurgency, even as we daily engage in advocacy for the welfare of our troops and the victims of insecurity’’, he noted.
Alhaji Yelwa told the press that though his association was not unmindful of the genuine and selfless efforts of some elected public office holders in the anti-insurgency fight, his members have commenced the process of interrogating the entire war against criminality with a view to launching a campaign against those widely adjudged incompetent and unbefitting of public office.
‘’We note that our elected Governments at all levels have been doing their best to deal with these challenges and restore normalcy. Various kinetic and non-kinetic strategies have been employed and are still being deployed. New weapons of war have also been thrown into the fight.
‘’In the midst of all these, we shall, in fulfillment of our sacred duty to meeting the yearnings of the people, continue to hold government accountable, even as we offer our platforms to all shades of opinion in the search for a safe, stable and secure North and Nigeria.
‘’Therefore, in continuation of efforts to fight insecurity and contribute to the search for the peace and prosperity of our region and the nation, our Association, NMBOA, hereby announces the flag-off of its media advocacy and crusade against some of the major challenges bedeviling our society.
‘’Our strategy is to use our outreach and various platforms spread across the North and beyond, to engage governmental institutions at all levels, as well as the civil society, traditional and religious leaders and key stakeholders, to evolve workable, sustainable and community-based responses and for community ownership of the war against insecurity.
‘’Through carefully-tailored programming, targeted jingles, etc, listeners will be educated on their roles and how their actions or inactions contribute to the outcome of the fight against insecurity. This crusade is in fulfillment of our Corporate Social Responsibility as the Fourth Estate of the Realm’’, he said.
He disclosed that NBMOA is a forum of Northern media broadcast owners and other critical stakeholders in the broadcast industry for the promotion of regional and national development, professionalism and the growth of the broadcast industry in Nigeria.
He said that the association was incorporated in 2014 and has active membership of over 60 licensed private broadcast operators of radio and television stations in the North with an estimated audience of over 55million and over 60,000 Nigerians gainfully employed, directly and indirectly.
‘’As professional media owners directly involved in the reporting of the current state of the region and beyond, we seize the opportunity of this press conference to formally announce the commencement of this crucial crusade and also seek the support, understanding and engagement of critical stakeholders in the society’’, he said, adding that it was towards significantly stemming the tide of the hydra-headed and multi-faceted insecurity in the North and the nation in general.
He expressed belief that his association’s efforts would contribute in no small measure to on-going initiatives undertaken by Governments at the various levels in the country towards stamping out the ugly causes and effects of insecurity in the region and the nation at large.
The NMBOA helmsman who is executive chairman of Caliphate TV and Radio in Sokoto and Abuja was accompanied to the press conference by Alhaji Ismail Sani and Dr. Alli Abdullahi (Founder and Director of Wonderland TV, respectively), Rabiu Ibrahim, Director WE-FM and NMBOA’s publicity secretary, Barr. Hajia Maimuna Yaya Abubakar (Founder,Tonzali TV), Alhaji Ibrahim Biu (MD, Progress FM, Gombe),
Alh. Munir Dan Ali of Trust TV, Alh. Tanimu Kere-Ahmed, MD Zuma Radio, Suleja and Alh. Usman Shehu, MD KOODE Radio International.
