MDadmin
Last Friday in Dutse, JigawaState, the Technical Committee on the establishment of the Jigawa State Television, submitted its report to Governor Sule Lamido. So happy was the governor with the work that our committee had done that he announced that the team was to be retained as the Implementation Committee to actualise the television station.
In the past seven months, since the Technical Committee was put together in March, 2013, we had travelled back and forth to Dutse to carry out the assignment, which allowed me to work with some of the most professionally competent broadcast personnel, academic and administrators, drawn from all over Nigeria.
In the seven months of work, we examined the law which established the Jigawa Broadcasting Corporation; explored the history of broadcasting in Nigeria in general and television, in particular; took a look at the problems and opportunities that such a television service, as envisaged, was going to confront in the setting of Jigawa.
The government has a very ambitious perspective about the possibilities for television broadcasting in the state in the context of the developments in the world of the 21Century.
For Gov Lamido, only the very best professional and technical basis must be set for the television service and if I had not participated actively in the work done these past couple of months, I would probably have also been slightly ill at ease with the prospects being drummed up for Jigawa State television. And believe me when I say that those ambitions are as high as they are lofty!
Already, the building to house both the radio and television stations are under construction and it is an architectural masterpiece.
Staff were sent to the BBC training institute as well as the TV College in Jos, and the government smartly went for some of the best, state-of-the-art equipment. Lucky Omoluwa’s Pinnacle Communications delivered on the contract in record time and for all intents and purposes, Jigawa should be the very proud owner of a television service that will make a mark in Nigeria; poignantly, it will come on the eve of the transition to digital broadcasting and that was envisaged in the contract between the Jigawa government and Pinnacles Communications Limited.
Professional platform
So our work is cut out; we will have to implement the recommendations we presented as a Technical Committee which took all of seven months to reach. I think its such a privilege to work on this very professional platform, to assist in midwifing a new television service for JigawaState. When I look around me, and see Alhaji Muhammed Ibrahim, former DG NTA and Radio Nigeria; Tonnie Iredia, former DG NTA; Timawus Mathias, celebrated TV broadcaster; Adamu Aliyu Kiyawa, former BBC broadcaster; Ahmed Aminu, former MD of CTV in Kano; Professor Umaru Pate, Northern Nigeria’s first mass communication professor and Sabo Guri, MD of Jigawa Broadcasting, I think about how dedicated they all were to get to the point we arrived. Look out for Jigawa television very soon because it should offer an interesting perspective to television broadcasting in Nigeria!
