NBC jams signals of Biafra Radio, haunts for sponsors
The Federal Government has successfully jammed the radio signals of the Biafra Radio.
This is even as it said government may re-open information centres abroad to launder the image of the country.
Speaking with journalists at the Presidential Villa after briefing President Muhammadu Buhari on the activities of the ministry, Shade Yemi-Esan said the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) had successfully jammed the signals of the propaganda radio station.
Radio Biafra is a propaganda radio station floated by some Igbo sons claiming to propagate the course, 45 years after the war .
“Right now the signals from radio biafra has been jammed successfully by the NBC.
“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 airwave in Nigeria” she said .
On the reopening of information centers, she said Government information centers currently exists in all states of the federation but are not functioning optimally.
According to her, the re-opening of the centers abroad is to the intensify publicity of the country.
Yemi-Esan who said she had led the ministry to brief the President on major activities of the ministry geared towards publicity of government programmes and feed back from Nigerians which influences policy decisions, added that the centres are one of the strengths of the ministry.
“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 as concerns the re-opening of information centres, abroad she 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 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 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.
“Mr President frowns on things like that, the welfare of every Nigerian, especially journalists is one of the major concerns that we have ” she said .
