VON is working towards matching BBC – Jijiwa
Why are you relocating your headquarters? We are not relocating. In every radio station, particularly those on AM [short wave and medium wave] you are supposed to have a well-equipped transmission station and broadcasting house separately. They are not expected to be on the same location. So what we have done has been to commission […]
Why are you relocating your headquarters?
We are not relocating. In every radio station, particularly those on AM [short wave and medium wave] you are supposed to have a well-equipped transmission station and broadcasting house separately. They are not expected to be on the same location. So what we have done has been to commission VON transmission station in Abuja. Before now, we didn’t have a transmission station in Abuja. We have been transmitting to the rest of the world from our transmission station in Ikorodu, Lagos and our broadcasting house is in Ikoyi, also in Lagos, but for now we are as well broadcasting from the Radio House in Abuja. If you like, you can say we are partially relocating because we are moving part of our transmission station from Ikorodu to Abuja but that does not mean we are closing down our transmission station in Lagos. It will be an addition to the one now in Abuja. The two will still be used to transmit to the rest of the world. The one in Ikorodu is still working, we are still broadcasting to the rest of the world from there. It’s just that the two will now complement each other.
That is why we are soliciting for assistance from government to help us with the fund required in our bid to have a standard broadcasting house so that we can compete well with other international broadcasting stations. The land that was initially given to us to build our broadcasting house was used by the Olusegun Obasanjo government to build the Shehu Yar’adua Centre, the remaining half of the land was given to PTDF by former FCT minister, Nasir el-Rufai . The present FCT minister has given us another land along airport road. We are soliciting government’s assistance for fund to build a world class broadcasting house where we can have our studio and the corporate headquarters of VON.
In what ways are you making VON to be competitive with the likes of BBC, VOA, Radio France International and others?
VON is one of the few radio stations in Africa specifically made for external broadcasting. Before the commissioning of the Abuja station, we were nowhere near the likes of these international stations but I can tell you that today we have moved on and by the time we have our broadcasting house we will be able to compete more easily with the BBC, VOA and other bigger international radio stations in terms of programs and others. With this station now, we can reach to any part of the world. For you to know this, you need to go outside the shores of Nigeria to know how we are competing well with these international stations and the quality of our programs. But then, we have our challenges. Because of the epileptic nature of our electricity supply we rely on diesel and the high cost of it and the moving of our personnel from Lagos to Abuja is eating deep into our finances. We have about 25 percent of our staff in Lagos. The cost of moving some of them with the recent relocation of our transmission station to Abuja is enormous but we are working to ensure that this does not pull us back. We are also ensuring that we move on to actualize our objectives.
How do you source your staff in view of the challenges that you are likely to face on language barriers for international broadcasting?
You realize that Nigerians are very dynamic people and very mobile. There is no part of the world you go to that you don’t find Nigerians. Besides, it’s very easy to source for our staff even in Nigeria. If you want people who understand English, you have many of them here in the country. If you need people who know French well, we have many Nigerians who studied French and understand it very well. Also, if it’s Arabic, we have many of them who are versed in Arabic. We don’t have problems with sourcing for people who understand Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo. The main challenge we have is in Fulfude but we are overcoming it because many of our staff studied in different parts of the country and the world. Another one we have as challenge is Swahili but luckily, a good number of our staff are recruited from Eastern part of the world, from citizens of countries like Tanzania and Uganda who live in Nigeria. Some wives of our diplomats who understand Swahili also takes care of our needs in Swahili and we make use of some Nigerians who are born and raised in those parts of the world.
Can your audience reach you on the internet?
Yes, we are on the internet. We are broadcasting through the internet every day night and day. Those who are unable to listen to us on radio are free to listen to us on the internet.
Are your operations digitalized?
Our operations are fully digitalized. Even though we are still operating on analog our operation are digitalized and if government wants us to phase out analog completely we are ready, we can do that without any problem. But for now, as you know, not many African stations have done away completely with analog. We still operate analog alongside the digitalized equipment. But as I said, we have the complete capability to go full digital operation.
What will you say you have done since your appointment to actualize the objective, vision and mission of VON?
I may not be in position to tell you exactly what I have done to achieve the set objectives of VON since I came on board but you are free to enquire from my staff and publish whatever they tell you about me without coming to verify from me. Having said that, my job is to carry on from where my predecessors stopped. They all did very well to move VON on. I hope somebody, someday will also say so of me when I leave office. But then, let me tell you that I have been able to build for VON the best transmission station in the continent of Africa and number six of its kind in the world. We have also built four digital compatible and compliance studios since my appointment. We have also taken our staff from the level of comatose to enthusiasm. We have recreated the true spirit that should be in a broadcasting station. Here, when anyone is affected, everyone is affected, everyone is involved. This is the spirit we have evolved here.
What level do you wish to take VON to in the next two years?
We hope that by then we would have completed the phase two of our Abuja transmission station and re-engineered and re-generated our Ikorodu transmission station for efficient transmission to the world. We also hope to complete our broadcasting house in Abuja and commission all these projects for better broadcasting to the world.