FRCN unchained

The idea was based on our current social and economic realities and how radio reporting coagulates instead of to liberate our democracy. It is not fiction, and it is not intended to be a thriller, but a thoroughly researched work, grounded in historic realities and contemporary thinking on the relationship between objective radio reporting of […]

The idea was based on our current social and economic realities and how radio reporting coagulates instead of to liberate our democracy. It is not fiction, and it is not intended to be a thriller, but a thoroughly researched work, grounded in historic realities and contemporary thinking on the relationship between objective radio reporting of social justice and how it affects our politics. Our discussion was interactive as we went from one profound truth to the next.
I witnessed firsthand how cerebral it was for radio personalities, all 81 of them, to absorb the depth and meanings of those home truths. My involvement was a result of continuous brainstorming with the FRCN Director General, Malam Ladan Salihu, whose tenure is gradually unchaining radio from the shackles of self censorship.
I pointed out some conveniently overlooked reasons why our democracy refuses to grow, and why a complete transformation of radio reporting grounded in the reforms that Ladan is injecting in FRCN is needed to make 2015 election the radio election of Nigeria, as was the case with the United States elections of 1924. For example, more than 50 years after Independence, the encumbrances which existed during military governments have not changed sufficiently and far too many people are subsisting in deep poverty because media practitioners especially radio reporters are not helping democracy.
There is no way to grow democracy when nearly 2/3 of the population is excluded from the process. This would be the 70 per cent living below the poverty line. Many in that class who struggle to survive listen religiously to radio, people with limited purchasing power, who are excluded from the small minority at the top that over-consume foreign TV programs and do not do enough to help peasants out of poverty.
I have learnt in different courses at home and abroad that better informed people even when they are struggling to get by can turn over the economy, create jobs, seize great opportunity, and take better care of children. And how does that category of people get its information? By listening to radio.
In our series of brainstorming sessions however, Malam Ladan insists that he is unchaining radio because whenever critical issues of social justice are raised, the response is predictably defensive. He argues that one cannot build up the poor simply by pulling down the rich, and that no one has to be pulled down in order for someone to rise. The irrefutable truth is that everyone moves up whenever the base is lifted. Some persons are just too self-absorbed and retrogressive to recognize the simple fact that information is the key to all genuine growth. I call his summation a noble covenant with radio listeners.
In Nigeria conversations around political issues are difficult indeed; they immediately become personal and reductionist about whether one likes or dislikes people in government or people in parliaments. Even people who should know better pollute the discourse.
What I reject completely is elitism on the basis of privileges that have their origins in the exploitation of others. We have no control over the past, but we have control over what exists now, but we continue to denigrate and marginalise sections of the population who are victims of the process, and whose current conditions are largely attributable to a fading listening reality. We are truly a monarchical contraband with too many people trying to live like royalty on the backs of the poor; and this cuts across successive governments and the political class.
However, consciousness is awakening in the corporation. A good thing would be if our politicians were to recognize this and do something other than watching without so much as embracing the fastest way to get their news across. For, change does not have to be chaotic, but the irony in social and economic repression is that those who stand to lose the most from reforms, riots, revolts, and revolutions are the ones who resist the most. In a revolution, there are many losers, in reforms, only winners.
The Abia conference draws a near straight line between this administrations transformation agenda and the growth of this democracy. It is important to enshrine social protection in the constitution, and court affirmative action, in some cases, to ensure that historically marginalized groups are brought into the mainstream. Radio is the vehicle. It is cheap and it forces politicians to be sincere. As we parleyed, the National Assembly rumbled. First we heard a superlative radio account of the event. And then silence. There was hardly any follow ups on radio. Poor people need information too, to influence their lives other than have sex and make babies, the very behaviour that we condemn them for. When you take away even their radios, what are you leaving them with?
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