From the onset when Alhaji Mikail Banji Sarumou, assumed office as the General Manager of the Nigeria Television Authority, (NTA) Ilorin, he showed the passion for developmental journalism and quality broadcasting that has underlined his career.
Sarumou, had at different times during his interactions with journalists in the state encouraged the practice of developmental journalism either in the print or electronic media.
He believes that broadcast stations and newspaper organisations and their practitioners have no excuses not to give the right messages to the public who hold so much trust in them.
According to him, ‘‘journalism is a very seriou business without journalists the society cannot move forward; it is journalists that report whatever happens in the society, it’s the journalists that serve as mirror of the society.
He said for broadcasting to have meaning to the audience, every station must develop content from its immediate environment to improve on the quality of life of the people. Excepts
Content development in TV
In television, whether we like it or not, we must develop content, and there are lots of contents around us. For example, as journalists we must be able to tell the public what is stalling the completion of Ogbomoso –Oyo road. Is it the government, contractor or is it that there is a monster on that road?
‘‘If there is a clog on that road for 10 minutes you will count up to 300 trailers lining up on both sides of the road; not to talk of 24 hours. The economic and political importance of the road cannot be overemphasised.
Let us break this jinx; I think it’s the journalist that can help us by finding out what is happening to the road. If we don’t impact positively on the people’s life, TV is meaningless’’, the GM said.
Holding government accountable through Developmental journalism
Recalling the positive role played by the media in the enthronement of democracy in Nigeria, the media executive said it’s not enough for journalist to fold their arms.
He said the media must continue to set agenda for the government to promote good governance.
“Charity they say begins at home, the NTA Ilorin is setting a pace for quality broadcasting. The other day we re-launched a new breakfast show programme called “Mourning Safari ’’ coming up every Saturday between 10 and 11am.
“The essence of the programme is to bring TV nearer to the door steps of the people,” Sarumou said.
We want to focus on developmental journalism, we want to hold government accountable to the people in a subtle way, and we also want the public to understand the challenges governments are facing in providing good governance. Most of the time governments are also misrepresented because there is no flow, no sequence in government programmes’’.
For a start, the re-launch programme debuted with the Kwara state Commissioner for Works and Transport, Dr Amuda Kannike. ‘‘We are looking at the state or roads in Kwara state, we are using Ilorin metropolis as our starting point’’.
Explaining the choice of the road sector to start the programme Sarumou said,’’ our community is largely rural and before you can move from one area to another there has to be access and to provide that access, there must be good roads. This government at the risk of sounding immodest has done a lot, most people who have visits kwara state today particularly, Ilorin who have visited several years ago come here to say there is tremendous improvement in road network and when you say this things it’s not merely by words television will give you visual.
“Also we want to use this opportunity to point government attention to some of the roads that need to be done because of their economic importance.
For example look at the community we are here, there is NTA, there is Kwara Radio, and this community is a very thriving area that if government invests in this area they are sure of recouping their investments in terms of generating revenue.
‘‘These are the kind of things that we want to draw government attention to and when we finish the road, we will move to education are from education we will move to health and environment; these are major issues, and that is developmental journalism, we should play down politics let’s put infrastructural development and good governance on the front burner’’.
Giving synopsis of the weekly safari show, Sarumou said the programme has been designed to segments namely: News, Entertainment, Advertisements Sports and Guest of the Moment.
He said ‘‘we have constructed a new studio in our Ganmo premises here and we believe this studio is adequate enough to handle this programmes.
‘‘The programme will provide a platform for Kwarans to know what is happening around them and beyond. Eighty per cent of our content will be from happenings in kwara state while the remaining twenty percent will be on things on national and international scenes’’.
Creating platform for advertisers
Besides it the entertainment and information aspect, the re-l¬aunched programme, according to the GM, will provide platform for advertisers to show case their goods and services.
‘‘We have carefully designed this programme to create a platform for advertisers especially, and people who want to hold events here, we want to give them additional millage.
‘‘For example if any company is holding their AGM, the pre-AGM discussion could be done on morning safari and it will give an insight into what people are actually coming to do in Kwara state. Also we want to reduce our advertisement rate as an introductory offer for this programme, all adverts on this programme will come at 60 per cent discount.
‘‘Then also we want to create a platform for small scale advertisers, it is not everybody that can spend big money. So we want to have a cluster of sectorial groupings .Like we want to focus on building materials go out there get people who are into building material business and we will get them together and do a sectoral report and it will afford them an opportunity as cluster to show case what they are doing .
Next we can move to cement, these are things that are causing challenges in the society and ordinary people on the streets will want to know but they don’t have access to television. So, we want to create a platform for them to interact between the retailers and the end users. We will also provide platform for manufacturers to come and explain some misgivings.
Revolutionising broadcasting
Also we believe that television has changed, the viewership has changed, we want to revolutionise broadcasting by providing quality entertainment and education for our young people. You will agree with me that we have four higher institution in Kwara.
We want to create an entertainment segment that will deal with what we are doing here and when we say entertainment, it’s going to be entertainment entirely. We want to look at our traditional dances, we want to look at what the talking drum is saying, we want to bring artists, we want to bring poets ,we also want to create a platform for young and upcoming artists .
These days people look for employment, we want to encourage young people to follow their passion and if you are a graduate that will give leverage but once you have passion for something you think nobody can take it away from you if you express that, we will give you the platform here that is why we are here.