Ohuabunwa wants govt to grant Nigerian media access to information

The Acting Chairman of Broadcasting Organization of Nigeria, (BON) Mr. Godfrey Ohuabunwa has called on government at all levels to avail the Nigerian media, especially the broadcasting media with all the necessary information they required to achieve responsible broadcasting in the country.
Ohuabunwa made the call on Tuesday in Abuja at the 5th Annual Lecture of The National Broadcasting Commission themed: New Media Convergence and the Future of Broadcasting: Greedy Telco, Broadcasters and the Scramble for Spectrum.
He said if the media must join hands with government to fight fake news and build a united country, the government must grant access to the local broadcasters in order to meet the challenges of Nigeria and help to build an integrated society.
He also said that fake news remain a problem to the contemporary Nigeria but for the broadcasters to help government fight the spread of fake news, they must have unfettered access to information to deter them from speculation from foreign media.
“if government made themselves available to broadcasters, issue of fake news will be reduced”, he said.
The Acting Chairman also urged that where the broadcasters do not have access to information, but CNN has access and we begin to rely on foreign media to have access, fake news will subsist.
“The theme for the NBC inaugural lecture is apt with the challenge of the contemporary broadcasting in Nigeria. Two things came out of it, it looked at the problem of a nation, Nigeria and also looked at the challenges involved in united and integrated nation.
‘‘If we must have a united country, if the broadcasters have to be responsible, and meet the challenges of Nigeria and help to build an integrated country, there must be access to information
Ohuabunwa, who also blamed the current threats to the unity of the country on ethnicity, state of origin in registration, employment and promotion and also on religion, called for the removal of the divisive tendencies in order to move the country forward as a united entity.
‘‘The issue of ethnicity and breaking up the country in terms of spreading wrong and volatile information, I think one of the things we can do as a country is to: remove religion, ethnicity, remove state of origin in our registration, it not should be a condition for employment, promotion or election.
The Director General of NBC, Is’haq Modibbo Kawu said the annual lecture was established in 2015 by the Commission to mark its anniversaries and to bring together stakeholders within and outside the broadcasting industry for meaningful, mutually beneficial, intellectual interaction.
This effort by the commission, he said had contributed very meaningfully to a broad-based discourse on pressing national issues, which our broadcasters interrogate and further exploit through professional packaging of programs for the benefit of the Nigerian audiences.
‘‘The positive impact of this lecture series is quite apparent, with broadcast content now being increasingly packaged to address issues of national development as well as that of the broadcast industry’’.
He expressed optimism that the future of the industry will be bright as the Commission’s focus, presently is the Digital Switch Over (DSO), with plans underway by the commission to achieve the DSO roll-out in all States of the federation.