PART A - THE PICTURE OF THE RADIO BROADCASTING LANDSCAPE
INTRODUCTION
Nigeria today stands at the crossroads of democracy and development. With a demographic index of about 130 million people, two of every five living West African resides in Nigeria, a country that has the highest index of population growth, urbanization and migration in Africa. Experts project that the country’s population will peak at 200 million in 15 years, reflecting a consistent 3% growth path; they also say that 40 percent of the peoples in this region live in the urban areas, almost 30 per cent jump from the 1960 levels. Currently, about 10% of Nigerians live in countries other than theirs.
This demographic reality comes with the context of key development challenges seeking creating resolutions, and for which the media will have to pay supportive roles.
Significantly, because of its pluralist and grassroots-friendly characteristics, radio has come to be accepted as the pre-eminent medium for development the world over.
True to its nature, today, in many parts of the world, radio is demonstrating the capacity to enhance economic development, contribute to technological growth, improve health and education, strengthen national security, combat crime and corruption, give expression to cultural pluralism and promote democratic process. Governments, especially those in the developing world are putting radio at the epicenter of their millennium development goals.
From Mali, through Niger, to Senegal, indeed in all countries of the ECOWAS region, development experts are crediting rural empowerment efforts, female gender empowerment, and conflict resolution initiatives to the power of radio especially at the community level. Little wonder that Niger Republic, Nigeria’s northern neighbour, has 98 Community radios, Mali has 88, Senegal has 14, Burkina Faso has 33, Guinea-Bissau has 14 and Ghana has 15.
Nigeria remains the only country within the ECOWAS corridor without community radios, and without a clear policy/legislative mechanism to support its emergence and development. Guinea (Conakry), the other country which shared this profile in the sub-region moved swiftly and signed a policy/legislative framework for community radio in June 2005.
This weakens Nigeria’s time place in the context of progressive radio development on a global scale.
Nigeria’s current democratic consolidation and development challenges, its economic reform initiatives, certainly its internal security challenges require a powerful medium like radio that is independent and grassroots-oriented to make progress.
To be sure, Nigeria, and particularly the current administration, has recorded bold steps in the decentralization of radio. Today, about 113 radio stations are competing for the airwaves. That is a dramatic shift from the situation a decade ago. However, the mainstream philosophy and orientation of radio is still trapped in the regimes of state and commercial principles, which are not best suited, in the opinion of experts, to achieve the ultimate results in development goals.
To reap all the best results of radio development, African communication stakeholders have proposed the growth of a broadcast environment within the structure and framework of the African Charter on Broadcasting. The charter calls for the development of a three-tier radio environment in all countries---Public/service; private/commercial; and community. Without doubt, since the 1979 statutory window as opened the constitution followed by the 1992 broadcasting legislative reform which broke the monopoly of the public/state broadcasting, by allowing the development of private/commercial radio, the country can claim a bold if even unconsummated stride in the development of the radio environment. The problem, however, is that all the radio stations in the country still exhibit the well known stigma of being urban- based, heavily commercial and mainly profit driven. Their development and grass root commitments may be genuine but the reality remains that these goals have been merely anecdotal and certainly incidental.
Community radio stations, where they have found roots, are among the best known locomotives of development and growth in the sense of liberating the energies and potentials of the very best but poorest in the society. They have done this by putting the fates of marginal social forces in their own hands. Perhaps their greatest input to the development matrix has been in strengthening the voices of the marginal citizens of the community to achieve expression with confidence and freedom. To this extent therefore, they serve as the quintessential catalyst of true development conceived as the attainment of freedom. Thankfully, the relevance of community radio stations has been proven in many parts of the world and especially in Africa. These visceral evidences, plus the compelling national imperative for the community radio sector, provide the strongest justification, at this time, for a national policy shift to usher in and give practical support for a community radio development program in Nigeria. |
