Ilelah: Digital Switch over Remains Fully on Course

Balarabe Shehu Ilelah, the Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, tells Samuel Ajayi that though hiccups have been experienced concerning the issue of digital switch over but says the project remains very well on course.

Two years into your appointment as Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, which is one of the key parastatals of government. How has it been?

Well, it has been very good. You know it’s not easy to regulate the broadcasting industry. Media people are are very intelligent people. And then these are people who always want to be the first to air the news. And it’s our responsibility to regulate, to make sure that what is aired is genuine and then without any sentiment, without any prejudice against anybody. So generally, so far, it’s okay. There are challenges actually. There is no any job that has no challenges. But with time we are able to work on some of the challenges here.

On a lighter mode, the first thing some said was that you were not really from core broadcasting background.

I don’t know why you say that. I am from core broadcasting background because I don’t know anything but broadcasting. I grew up as a broadcaster. What you would have said is it is not in Nigeria. Okay. But I spent almost 30 years as a broadcaster outside the country, I work for the British Broadcasting Commission, BBC. I worked for China Radio International and I work for Radio Moscow International all as a broadcaster. So I know nothing but broadcasting.

You have been meeting stakeholders for some time now in different parts of the country like Sokoto, Kano, Enugu and so on. Including Lagos and Ibadan. What informed this?

What informed this is that I feel as a broadcaster, the broadcast industry is my constituency and I don’t want to be seen as being confrontational. So I prefer to engage members of my own consituencty in the broadcast community. And the only thing I could do that was to reach out to them, meet them. You don’t just call them to come to your office. That’s why I travel to almost all parts of the country to have one-on-one discussion. And as you have just said earlier, there was the initial notion that I did not come from the core broadcasting background. That’s the impression by some people in the industry. So, in order to clear away that impression, I have to meet these people in order to show them that I am part of them and that I’ve always been part of them. Now that I’m a regulator, I’m still part of them and I know the profession and we should work together with them. It’s not that I created a barrier. You are there and I as a regulator, I am here and not just wielding the big stick against you. Now, let’s discuss, let’s work together, let’s exchange our ideas, let us see how we can improve and sanitise the industry. That is why I decided to go round the country and meet private and government owned media houses and it yielded a lot of success.

How do you handle broadcasting that has to do with security due to how sensitive security is? Last year, you had to invite a top Air Force officer to speak on security and broadcasting.

Security issues are very sensitive and the reason why we invited him to come and talk at that location is because most journalists or most broadcasters are not mindful of what they say, when it comes to coverage of security issues. We should not be seen as glamorising banditry or terrorism. We should not be seen as doing that. When you say much about them, it is their oxygen. When you show their success to the public, when you show how many times they attack the police, how many policemen were killed by them. You are giving them like more oxygen to survive. So what we are saying is that try to starve them of that publicity and report less of their activities. We are not saying that people should not know what they are doing, no. But at least you should be mindful not glamorise them. Don’t show the public that they are succeeding over our law enforcement agencies and that will help the security agencies to deal with them.

Does the NBC over-regulate as being insinuated in some quarters?

I don’t really know what you mean by over-regulation. It is either you are regulating or not regulating. There’s nothing like under-regulating or over-regulating. We operate within the ambit of the law. So we don’t over-regulate. What I’m saying is that most of our broadcasters or those who practice broadcasting in Nigeria have little knowledge about what is called broadcasting. Some of them just joined direct from the university, without even any requisite qualification to work in any television or radio stations. Bu then they just call themselves broadcasters. That is why NBC is coming up with an institute to train broadcasters. We are going to make it a law. I mean, yes, a law. Before you are engaged by any station, radio or television station, that person must pass through some basic training. That is our institute. We have three courses: the basic, elementary and the high stages. So we are also going to make it a condition before we give you a license, you must show us the list of your staff and the staff that you are going to recruit must go through the institute. They must have the basic qualification to be called broadcasters. Because if you don’t do that, you find that most of those you just call somebody and give him a microphone to start talking on air without knowing the ethics and the do and don’ts of the profession might mess things up.

NBC has tried so much for Nigeria’s broadcasting content consumers. Now let me put it that way: what people have advocated for is the possibility of pay-per-view as it affects satellite television. How far have you gone with this?

You see on this issue of pay-per-view, we have been going forth and back several times. We are not here to defend the pay TV stations. We have called the them several times to ask them this question because we’ve received so many letters. The question is not for NBC to ask them to change their mode of operation. You pay N1000 or N2000 and if you don’t use it and traveled and whenever you come back to Nigeria, you can still carry on but they said no; that television is not like that of telecommunication which is a two way communication whereby when I call you, you know that I call you and I know that you call me and service providers can charge both parties. You are the one that is watching. So once you subscribe and pay your N2000, whether you watch it or you don’t watch it, it will expire. And they said they don’t even have the technology for now to do it; I mean to start charging pay as you view.

What is your take on the Digital Switch Over? Many have said it is taking too long to get this done.

We are working on it. The DSO, that is Digital Switch Over, is on course. We have faced some challenges and I must admit that even the manufacturers of the DSO boxes need to recoup their investment. We have done the switch over in only eight states. But we don’t want to do it piecemeal again. And I can assure that we are on course especially under the new administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.