Thursday, July 16, 2015
BIAFRA RADIO JAMMED.
The Federal Government of Nigeria
says it has
jammed signals of Biafra
Radio, a new channel that
has been accused of
spreading propaganda.
The permanent secretary in
the Ministry of Information,
Shade Yemi-Esan, made this
known Tuesday while
Speaking with journalists at
the presidential villa after
briefing President
Muhammadu Buhari on the
activities of her ministry,
Ms. Yemi-Esan said the
Nigerian Broadcasting
Corporation successfully
blocked the signals of the
radio station.
Radio Biafra was floated by
some Nigerians in the south
east of the country. While its
backers say the radio caters
for the needs of people from
the region, the network is
also known for
propagating the ideology of
the former secessionist
Republic of Biafra.
“Right now the signals from
radio Biafra have been
jammed successfully by the
NBC,” Ms. Yemi-Esan said.
“The commission is also
working with security
agencies to get those that are
behind that radio because it
is an illegal radio, it is not
licensed by anybody to be
on the airwaves in Nigeria,”
She said government’s
information centres
currently exists in all states
of the federation, but are not
functioning optimally.
“We are happy with the
response we got and the
concerns of President on the work we
are doing, especially the publicity
aspect. He wants us to intensify
publicity because he wants every
Nigerian to know about the policies and
programmes of this government,” she
said.
On the response of the president in
respect of reopening information
centres abroad, she said “at different
fora, the President has said it, that he
wants to improve the image of Nigeria
and one of the ways we can do that is
by the re-opening of these centres
abroad, so he was all for it and he said
that we will work together to ensure
that we do that”.
The permanent secretary said she also
briefed the president on the nine
parastatals that are under the ministry,
the work they do and some of the
challenges they face.
“Most of the challenges have to do with
adequate funding. We talked especially
about national press centre that is not
working up to a level that we
expected,” she said.
She said the president also raised
concerns about piracy in Nollywood
and instructed that the ministry should
work harder to ensure that the
producers of Nollywood films get what
is due to them and that piracy is
reduced to the barest minimum.
On the welfare of media practitioners,
she said the practice of unpaid salaries
and lack of proper welfare package
should not be heard of in a country like
Nigeria.
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