Shuaibu and story of FRCN’s magic studio

But essentially, Samson Shuaibu was Acting Director-General of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), between February and June 2013, following the expiration of the tenure of Barrister Yusuf Nuhu. Most notably, Shuaibu had refused to vacate the office after he attained the age of 60 on June 22, 2013, and was therefore described by […]

But essentially, Samson Shuaibu was Acting Director-General of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), between February and June 2013, following the expiration of the tenure of Barrister Yusuf Nuhu. Most notably, Shuaibu had refused to vacate the office after he attained the age of 60 on June 22, 2013, and was therefore described by many as FRCN’s sit-tight Director-General.
The federal civil service rule stipulates that all categories of workers in public service shall compulsorily retire on attaining the age of 60, or after serving for 35 years, whichever is earlier. The only exemptions are judicial officers and members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities who are permitted to retire at 70 and 65 years respectively. But Shuaibu attempted to contravene the regulation.
Dr Samson Shuaibu attained the age of 60 but wouldn’t retire until he was grudgingly pushed out. His catch-22 disposition displayed the disposition of a man who was not tired on his 60th birthday. His tenure at the FRCN, as the head of the nation’s premier broadcasting house would have been quiet and peaceful, himself being a lacklustre personality, who had worked hard to ascend the hierarchical ladder of the radio institution but in his bid to remain in office longer than allowed, he courted his minister’s wrath by condemning an entire ethnic stock, describing them in uncomplimentary language in an interview he granted Premium Times, a web-based news medium.
Shuibu had declared that, “Nigeria is not owned by Hausa-Fulani, neither is it owned by Igbo or Yoruba. It is owned by Nigerians. The Hausa-Fulani had serially ruled the FRCN or ruined FRCN all these years,” he declared.
In obvious outrage, many people pulled Dr Shuaibu off his high horse. Particularly invective was an article by Ibraheem A. Waziri in Kaduna, who argued that “Samson Shuaibu is not an intellectual – but a simple bureaucrat who, by virtue of his experience, rose to the level of a high ranking civil servant who may not be expected to engage in a debate about the destiny of his nation as some may not see him in the light of  learning, necessary for a role of an opinion leader whose choices, utterances and ideological leaning can register a good degree of logic and inspire a large following from the crème de la crème of the society.”
Waziri did not stop there. He argued further that “if the civil service produces a Director-General on both administrative and professional capacity that cannot sound like a committed public servant and intellectual when he chooses to speak in matters relating to public reality and responsibility, then the search for where to begin in our quest for creating a cohesive country should begin in the Nigerian civil service and especially in institutions like FRCN.” The institution, Waziri added, is supposed to be the custodian of national ethics and values in whatever may be disseminated to the public through it. And when its leaders reveal themselves as accomplished ethnic jingoists, emerging from their closets to engage in negative ethnic stereotyping of others, then the nation is openly treading on the path to self-destruction.
But as if that was not enough to rearrange Shuaibu to weigh whatever public statements that would come from him in retirement, Shuaibu again granted another interview, this time to the highly respected Weekend Trust published on life in retirement. In that interview Shuaibu emerged smoking from all cylinders, blowing hot and cold about his achievements during his brief and tragic tenure as the DG of FRCN, which, in actual fact, many workers of FRCN confessed they would rather forget.
This time Shuaibu ascribed to himself the revamping of Studio 22, a once anachronistic monument within the corporation which was conceived but could not be completed by one of the forward looking DGs of the corporation over three decades ago. In last week’s interview Shuaibu confidently beat his chest and declared that he had completed the 22 studios whose noble ideal is to ensure that several FM stations resided within the vicinity of the FRCN in Radio House at a subsidized rate while they maintained their business offices in their chosen locations anywhere in town.
However, a visit to this one-stop-shop reveals that the project has only just begun. It had been started by the current DG and is just beginning to take shape. One wonders what Shuaibu intended to achieve with the pronouncements he made in the interview and why an intellectual, although Waziri would not agree with that nomenclature, would want to purloin someone else’s effort and call them his own, even if the situation on ground screams that there is yet nothing on ground to suggest that any work had been done on the studios before yesterday.
It is derogatory to the office of the DG for anyone to reduce himself to such comrade propaganda status. Despite the unfortunate manner of his ascendency to the office of the DG, including the kiss of death that threw him out, he should exhibit more maturity than he is crediting himself with at the moment. He had mentioned in a different interview in the Vanguard of July 10, 2013, that were he confirmed, he would have evolved the FRCN of his dreams. It should stop at that.
But creating a magic and non-existent studio in the figment of his imagination would neither embellish his career nor help his political aspiration. But it would demean the office of the DG which he continues to hold as his greatest achievement in life. If he achieved anything else, he wouldn’t be talking of things that were never on ground Nader his watch.