Radio Freedom and Social Responsibility in Kano, Northern Nigeria

Salman Yunusa

Federal Ministry of Water Resources Abuja

Many people in northern Nigeria welcome Radio Freedom in Kano with great enthusiasm and hope in this era of globalization and poor participation by Nigerian Muslims who are perhaps amongst the people with the least participation in the media arena. Nigerian Muslims are also misrepresented in the media hence the Trust group of newspapers which publishes the Daily Trust only daily private newspaper in the North is now a well respected institution. The Leadership has also joined this league of influential members of the fourth estate. These two organizations and the Radio Nigeria Kano are have exhibited high degree of professionalism and commitment to the well-being of the society. Radio Freedom quickly joined this club of respected elite because the people have little or no choice not because of professionalism and patriotism but because of ruthless marketing strategy of using one group against another. Its influence is therefore as a result fear of blackmail. The radio was expected to educate and inform the public especially the teeming illiterate masses of Kano and the lazy literate ones who never read but listen to the radio. The Hausa Services of BBC, VOA and Radio Germany still remain the most popular despite the coming of Radio Freedom.

Kano where Radio Freedom is located is the most populated city in Northern Nigeria and contains more Muslims than any other city in black Africa therefore it is also the most important Muslim city and the center of Islam in northern Nigeria as well as West African region in general. It is supposed to provide leadership in Islam and exemplary communal peaceful co-existence. In the last two decades it has experienced several religious turbulences which have been attributed to economic deprivation by Western educated social scientists. Political Kano has been vibrant; it was the home of the NEPU in the first republic and PRP in the second republic. During President Obasanjo’s first term Kano joined mainstream national politics but unfortunately the then state governor Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso antagonized all sections of the society through his high handedness and arrogance. The President’s party lost in the 2003 elections as a result of Dr. Kwankwaso’s recklessness. Kano has nothing to show from the four years of Dr. Kwankwaso’s administration even though he claims to have executed over 6000 projects but his transition team and that of the incoming administration acknowledged that he executed less than 400 projects of (N10 million and above). He has been notorious for sacking over 5000 workers and depriving over 9000 pensioners of the entitlements for four years. He dismissed several secondary school teachers and yet kept up the propaganda that he was concerned with education without building schools to accommodate the increase in student population. Over one hundred students were put in a classroom. He was busy constructing roads and painting government buildings and at the same time destroying human capital because there was no job security in the state civil service. When he was about to leave he decided to recruit 1000 workers so as to create problems for the incoming administration. The people of Kano eventually got rid of him and his mentors in Abuja decided not to tamper with the elections of Lagos and Kano in order to avoid lethal violence. This brief background on Dr. Kwankwaso’s locust years became necessary because of the role Radio Freedom would later play in its attempt to tarnish the image of Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau’s administration.

Radio Freedom gained more audience because of its talk shops whereby people are allowed to phone in at particular segments of most of its programs. As an illiterate society its audiences are rarely concerned with the content of most of its programs but with the opportunity provided for talking. Also as a commercially oriented organization that lacks any form of social responsibility it provides avenue for opponents of the state government to attack and the supporters of the government usually reply and both parties pay to talk. The radio station rarely conducts any program that provides in-depth analysis of the social problems facing the society. Any fairly informed person who listens to the station would be saddened and come to the conclusion that if these are the people who would guide Hausa Muslims then their future is bleak. In it’s over a year of existence the station has not concretely addressed some of these common problems facing Nigerian Muslims; inability to compete because of poor education and lack of necessary skills and poor economic base leading to widespread unemployment and poverty. These are some of the major problems that lead to social unrest. How could these problems be tackled? This should be the source of in-depth study by any serious social institution such as a radio station with wide listenership. Unfortunately this station has not offered anything in this regard. We must ask ourselves this question, which state government in northern Nigeria is making attempt towards tackling these problems?

Now we have to know why Radio Freedom may never attempt to make these investigations. First of all apart from the fact that the station is more concerned with making money it is also one of the most partisan public institutions in northern Nigeria that has remained insensitive to any notion of fairness. One of its directors contested and lost elections in Jigawa State hence everyday people receive dossiers against the nomadic Governor of Jigawa. Secondly one of its directors is bent on destroying the government of Kano State because the current state governor did not give them any juicy appointment. Thirdly one of the senior management staff was a former aide of Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso hence he is always after anything that would destroy the current Kano State Government. There is hardly any station that has this partisan baggage. Even the Kano State owned media houses have allowed people to criticize the government unlike in the previous administration whereby if anyone criticizes that government he was subjected to victimization wherever he was, even if in the private sector. It is on the record that some employers have been intimidated to force them to sack their employees for criticizing the then state government.

Some of the problems facing the Muslims of northern Nigeria such as inability to compete because of poor education and lack of necessary skills and poor economic base leading to widespread unemployment and poverty have been systematically confronted by Kano State Government under the leadership of Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau. For example in the area of education, the government has initiated the first ever comprehensive approach to tackle the cultural inhibition which is the alienation of Islamic education from the system. This has been done by the largest ever intervention in Quranic and Islamic Education in the whole of northern Nigeria. It involves capacity building for teachers through amongst other methods computer training, empowerment by providing tools for gainful employment and rehabilitation of destroyed and dilapidated structures of community schools established by philanthropists. The state government has also begun the largest ever classroom construction exercise in whole of the Muslim part of northern Nigeria. It has constructed more than two hundred additional classrooms in existing schools and constructed twenty six additional junior secondary schools to ensure 75% absorption rate with adequate classroom space unlike the previous administration. In addition over 134 schools have been established by the communities which they handed over to the state government. The government has also provided scholarship to over 22000 students in tertiary institutions in which over 250million naira was spent in the 2004 budget the largest amount spent in the whole of Nigeria. Previously the state government only provided partial scholarships to a few students studying some courses. And above all over 4000 teachers have been recruited whereas the previous government sacked all the contract teachers some of whom have teaching experiences spanning decades and such manpower cannot be replaced.

Secondly in the area of social development the state government has also done much that cannot be narrated in this article. For example it has employed more than 10000 people in various government agencies; it has enabled over 100000 people to get jobs through the mass food production program. Thirdly it is also one of the most transparent governments in Nigeria because it is one of the few that publishes its Appropriation Law for public consumption. Dr. Kwankwaso never did that in his four years of administration. These facts are never ever mentioned by Radio Freedom because they would make the incumbent governor popular in the state. Instead the station airs only the selective errors and scathing criticism of the state government in order to spread hatred and cause social disharmony in the state.

The most active director of Radio Freedom claims to be an Islamist yet the station has never had any programs on the social dimensions of the Shari’ah. The teachings of the Shari’ah are mostly concerned with social justice. Before the assumption of office by Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau in Kano there was so much social disharmony in state because over 9000 pensioners were deprived and when he assumed office he paid them over N1.6billion. Radio Freedom never discusses this progress but keeps on inciting people that there is no Shari’ah because the hands of thieves have not been cut off. The social re-orientation campaign which is the back bone of the Shari’ah also does not receive the attention of those who think there is no Shari’ah. So what does Radio Freedom do?

By emphasizing partisanship and divisions the station is not promoting social harmony. The media in every progressive society is a public trust where the practitioners put public service and responsibility above profit and partisanship. Radio Freedom has no philosophy of promoting progress of teeming backward people of Kano State. It should have a philosophy which should be its goal for example the progress of the Muslim Umma in education, which is long term initiative that goes beyond the term of any administration.

The Radio Station is more concerned with promoting illiterate and uneducated noisemakers and politicians who are ill-informed. Any one interested in the progress will feel saddened with the kind of misinformation disseminated by the station. Since the station is more interested in making profit it has to give opportunity to misguided politicians who would not care even if the society is destroyed as long as they get their opportunity. There are so many educated people who can enlighten people of Kano on the economy, science and international politics and they have been consulted by even international organizations but Radio Freedom prefers uneducated and disgruntled politicians. One of such illiterates is Alin Bukar Makoda who claimed that it is President Olusegun Obasanjo who brought improvement in Nigeria’s foreign reserve. He never mentioned the role of increase in oil price in dollar terms and not real terms because the dollar has depreciated which is one of the reasons for Nigeria’s economic predicament. Makoda also blamed the Kano State government for the dwindling fortunes of Kano Airport which begun since the ascendance of President Olusegun Obasanjo when the policy of none clearing of cargo in the airport was initiated while the PDP was in power in Kano State. The Weekly Trust has documented extensively the politics of power generation in Nigeria in which the partisan efforts of the Obasanjo administration were illustrated but people like Alin Bukar Makoda attempted to deceive the audience that Obasanjo is doing well in the power sector. One of the most unjust behaviors of the Radio Freedom is that it always connives with those who pay by orchestrating only phone calls from their sympathizers.

The concerned people of Kano who have no money have nowhere to complain about the social injustices of Radio Freedom apart from the internet and the newspapers which are available only to the few I doubt if they will ever read this criticism and adjust in the interest of the people of Kano. They have tried several times to cause public incitement in Kano. There was the time they read a false story from the Daily Sun in which they attempted to tarnish the image of the respected Emir of Kano. Another time they carried a martial music signifying that a coup has occurred. Yet another time they caused so much disaffection amongst political groups necessitating intervention of the security agents. The radio has done so much damage to the image of Kano by reporting isolated cases and inciting the public leading to a mob action in a court of law in a case in which some youths are charged with culpable homicide. How could people who claim to be Islamic to become so much anti-law and order and become habitually inclined to inciting the mob?

The producers of Radio Freedom are very insensitive to the livelihood of the people of Kano hence they organized a program that antagonized one of the greatest employers of labor in the state. In that program which was aired in the second week of June a foremost Nigerian industrialist and an indigene of Kano was insulted and intimidated by the Radio's hired mob. He had the best intention of establishing more factories in Kano to employ the teeming unemployed youths roaming the streets of the town but the station that is supposed to encourage him decided to allow its mob to antagonize him leading to eventual abortion of the program.

It is sincerely hoped that the highly respected Chairman of the Radio who spent all his public life saving the masses of Nigeria would quickly intervene so that the Radio would discharge its social responsibility as other media houses in the North such as Radio Nigeria Kaduna, the Trust Newspapers and the Leadership newspaper with great sense of responsibility and patriotism. It is only the patriotic chairman that could call the station to order and help avert catastrophe and perpetuation of illiteracy in Kano.