‘Why BBC can’t take its 36m Nigerian audiences for granted’

The BBC has kick-started its services in Yoruba, Igbo and pidgin. Why did it take so long in coming, given that Hausa, a major language has been running for many years? In a sense that is historical anomaly that whereas BBC which has started Hausa service for about 65 years or thereabout but we never […]

The BBC has kick-started its services in Yoruba, Igbo and pidgin. Why did it take so long in coming, given that Hausa, a major language has been running for many years?

In a sense that is historical anomaly that whereas BBC which has started Hausa service for about 65 years or thereabout but we never have the resources to be able to start news services in the other major Nigerian languages. I can’t really give an explanation as to why. It is particularly welcome that the additional investments in the BBC made it possible to now launch services in other languages. It means all major Nigerian languages are being covered now and that is great news.

Within the few months of operations, will you say things are shaping up to this mission?

The new BBC services have benefitted audiences here in Nigeria and also in the United Kingdom. Looking around in the bureau, you will see that we have hired over new 100 journalism staff who understand the country, the stories and region better. And the values of their journalism reflect that to the audiences in the UK who in part pay for the BBC world services. So, it is a mutually benefitting two-way relationship.  And that inform what we do here. We want to reflect the best of our independence in international news coverage to our Nigerian audiences in all their languages but also want to understand Nigeria better and explain it to audiences in the UK.

To what extent have the recruited journalists been made to key into the BBC mission in Nigeria?

Well, it is always interesting when you bring in local journalists into a big news organization like BBC. The BBC has different ways of operating and because we have very high editorial standard around independence and impartiality which the best journalists obviously understand, we have worked very closely with our new journalists to ask them what support they need in joining the BBC and how do we best explain the BBC mission to them so that everyone understands that our coverage of Nigeria has to be in high standard of independence and impartiality and they have really risen up to that challenge.

Considering the fact that there are array of news platforms, what will you say is the uniquen in  what BBC has to offer local Nigerian audiences?

I will say that particularly on international news, there is this element of trust and independence. We know that in reporting regional Africa and reporting the international news, audiences recognize that BBC is accurate, fair and independent. That’s very important but that’s not all. We know we have to provide the audiences with wider range of engaging contents and not just international, breaking or bad news and we have to involve solution journalism that helps them solve problems in their own lives. For instance, we have new television programmes on businesses, entrepreneurship as well as how to generate economic growth and wealth.  So, wherever we go, we try to take a different look at news, near-news contents in sports, technology, sciences, medicine and things that people are interested in around the news and help the audiences explain issues that drive international which help them understand the world better.

Now that you have an operational base in Nigeria, do you still hope to distribute to local media organizations some of your news contents through syndication?

We are very happy and interested in publishing our digital, radio and TV contents through third party platforms. That partnership has been a huge success on how we operate. We do have some direct FM and Short Wave radio services distribution of our own. We have a website of our own but we need partners to work with because the reach we get in BBC summary news in one minute, BBC in Pidgin English that we run on Nigerian FM radio stations or in Ghana, Benin or Togo, the reach we generate, the audiences we can reach are very big and we understand that we are on a journey to digital future and we still have huge audiences. In Nigeria, we have 36 million audiences who consume some form of news contents every week. That’s our biggest single country audience anywhere in the world. And interestingly, lots of it is still being driven by the 19 million Hausa radio listeners. And we are in digital transformation but we are also interested in reaching the audience wherever we can, easily and effectively.

How have you ensured that even within the space you have operated, you have managed challenges associated with fake news reportage?

What we know is that people will go to a trusted news provider to be sure that what they have heard is true or not. And one other thing we have seen is that fake news can easily circulate on chats apps and they are difficult to search because you wouldn’t see it unless somebody sends it to you. But audiences will always see something suspicious and go to the trusted platforms to confirm either on a local Nigerian news platform or that of BBC. And one other thing that scare me about this fake news is that contents that circulate on app chats could be cloned because those behind it want to give some level of legitimacy to what is being circulated, hence, they clone news sites and unless someone ring you out and tell you that ‘hey, that is a fake BBC news version being circulated’, you may not know or could have believed it.

In what areas have you started engaging local news organizations on partnership?

We are going to be starting with the Channels TV this summer on a news half-hour genuine co-production. And we want to do that because we feel we get something to learn from your journalists and your news culture. Just as the BBC’s 100 years of programming and expertise and journalism standard has something to contribute. We really do believe in that partnership model running on Channels this year.

In the days ahead, what will you ask Nigerians to look out for?

Well, the BBC doesn’t aim to be the first point of call on local and national news reports in Nigeria. We want that to be part of our offer but we understand that the audiences will always go first to a national provider. But the BBC has an important role to play in providing contents missing in the national market such as the issue of gender representation among similar other issues where we believe the news is not reaching a particular segment of the population. Either by language group or class group, the BBC has got a mission to help in such circles. This is because we have a universal model of coverage.