Reach and Puzzle of Nagarta Radio
By
Mahmud
Jega
mmjega@yahoo.com
It promises to be a big splash. The ceremony slated to begin at Mararraban Jos on
Saturday morning [
February 26, 2005
] for the commissioning of Nagarta Radio station will bring
together a who’s who in Nigerian business,
politics, government and journalism. Emir of Zazzau Alhaji
Shehu Idris will be the Royal Father of the Day. Former
Army Chief Lt General Muhammadu Inuwa Wushishi will chair the occasion, while fiery
Ahmadu
Bello
University historian Dr. Yusuf Bala Usman, who was recently in the news for refusing a government nomination to the
Political Reforms Conference, will be the guest speaker. Information and National Orientation
Minister Chief Chukwuemeka Chikelu will be the chief
launcher.
It is not for nothing that so many eminent persons are getting together at Mararraba, along the busy
Kaduna-Zaria Expressway, to commission a radio station. For, Nagarta isn’t just any radio
station. In more ways than one, it is a first in
Northern Nigeria, in
Nigeria
, and even in the entire West African sub-region’s broadcast industry.
To begin with, there is the equipment. Nagarta Radio’s Digital 60 kilowatt transmitter is the
first of its kind to be installed in
West Africa
. Then there is its license. Although dozens of private radio
stations have preceded it into the field, all of
them
got licenses to broadcast on FM, but Nagarta was the
first to obtain a license to broadcast on medium
wave.
As a result, it can be heard all mover northern
Nigeria
and all the way to
Lagos
,
Port Harcourt
and
into
Niger
and
Chad
Republics
on a clear evening.
It is good equipment planted on very fertile ground,
a private radio station in the heart of the North
that broadcasts mainly in Hausa. Fertile ground, you said? Many Nigerian
skeptics do not see the North as fertile ground for anything, least of
all media outlets. Some of the most promising newspaper titles in
Nigeria
, Citizen, Reporter, Democrat, Sentinel and Hotline
among them, blazed the trail for a while in this region, only to vanish
in time. Where is the room for optimism in this situation?
Paradoxically, there is plenty of room for optimism
because the very reasons that make the Northern
terrain so treacherous for the print media and the
ones that make it fertile ground for the electronic
media. The literacy rate in the North is far behind
that of the South, as is overall economic
development.
There aren’t too many literate Northerners around
to
read the newspapers, nor are there very many
Northern corporations to advertise in them. In any case, who will
advertise in the newspaper when the target audience on the whole
doesn’t read it?
If Northerners don’t read the newspapers all that
much, and yet are miles ahead in political
awareness,
then they must be getting their information from
somewhere. It isn’t very difficult to see where
that
is. The old Radio Television Kaduna {RTK], known
there
days as FRCN, is the most powerful among its
regional contemporaries precisely because this is a region where people
religiously tune to the radio. Not only the local stations; the BBC
Hausa Service, the Voice of America and the German station Deutschwelle
have all planted a firm foot in the Nigerian political and social
terrain by cashing in on the huge Northern appetite for radio
broadcasts. Hence, the market is always there for a very good local
radio station to seize.
That’s exactly what Nagarta Radio set out to do when
it began test-transmission last year. At
11.30am
on
March 7, last year, Malam Shehu Yusuf Kura’s voice
was
heard on the Nagarta airwaves, shortly afterwards
followed by the voices of Abba Zayyan and Hajiya
Fatima Mohamed. Within a year, Nagarta began to make
its presence felt in many areas of Northern
community
life. It’s stated primary goal is the promotion of
national unity; its motto is the Muryar Hada
Kan
Jama’a, or Voice of Unity. Beyond that, the
station
has aired very educating health, educational,
cultural
and political programmes. Family hygiene has been
much discussed on Nagarta Radio this past year, as was the HIV/AIDS
pandemic, tuberculosis, the vexed issue of almajirai, as well as
marriage and child upbringing.
The Nagarta programmes that made the greatest impact,
however, are probably the live discussion programmes
Kowane allazi [da nasa amanu] and Kasarmu a yau.
Kura
himself is an expert, flawless and very
knowledgeable presenter, as are his top assistants, and they have
engaged some of the leading men in Northern politics on a forceful tour
around the political terrain while listeners phoned in, often with
severely critical questions. Among the political big guns who have
appeared on the live programmes were Governors Ahmed Makarfi and Ibrahim
Shekarau, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, the late Alhaji Wada Nas, Alhaji Umaru
Dikko, Sheikh Ahmed Gummi, Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi, Reverend Samaila Jarumi,
Maigwari Alhaji Zubairu Jibrin, Alhaji Ahmadu Chanchangi and Alhaji
Tanko Yakassai.
The North may have millions of eager radio listeners,
but it is another thing altogether for advertisers
to
part with their money. That is a matter that Nagarta
Radio’s managers are already having to grapple
with;
General Manager Shehu Kura said they intend to
undertake a regional tour to meet with political,
business and community leaders in order to generate
patronage. They should better hurry it up; the North
had in the past produced private media houses that
were a smashing editorial success but which were
commercial failures.
The last remaining puzzle about Nagarta Radio is its ownership.
The way a Nigerian thinks, there must be some hefty big guys behind
something, for it to get a medium-wave license and to acquire such fine
equipment. The ownership mystery is encouraged by the managers; in a
recent newspaper interview, Shehu Kura, who lived in
America
for 16 years, said a listener should carry less
about the owner and more about the quality service he gets from a radio
station. That’s exactly how an American sees things, but not
necessarily how a Nigerian sees it.
JEGA is editor of the New
Nigerian,
Kaduna
.
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