The
Nigerian government says it has successfully jammed the 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.
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 from 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.
She said the government may re-open information centres abroad
to launder the image of the country.
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.
“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.
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