The National Broadcasting Commission NBC seems lucky in the comity of government Parastatals, Departments and Agencies, even luckier again soon after the appointment of Alhaji Balarabe Shehu Ilelah on June 12, 2021, a veteran Broadcast Journalist and professional to the core, that heralded continuous high professional touch and management at the commission.
The appointment that came aftermath of COVID pandemic and it’s lockdown, moving towards its second, third and fourth wave to Delta variant, that heralded the globe including Nigeria, was not also left out of other distractions like the artificial occurrences of ENDSARS struggles, the social media restrictions of Twitter ban, and political hate speeches that was becoming the indices of tense political environment in the country.
With the natural and artificial phenomenon, contending with very few staffers and inadequate hands to carry out its activities, Ilelah, quickly settled down to tackle headlong the myriads of challenges, including the requests from both private and public entities on the need to open up more outlets of broadcast communication in Nigeria.
Coming from the professional point of view both in training and practice, locally and internationally along with many decades of managerial and administrative wealth of experience, across the globe, it became a routine for Alhaji Balarabe Shehu Ilelah, the new Director General ,National Broadcasting Commission NBC to embark on meaningful reforms that had gradually improved and transformed the organisation in line with the present realities , government conjecture and expectations.
In view of the tense political environment, the new management doused the usual and unabated tensions as the sole regulator of broadcast journalism, practice, and other variables that had restored sanity both in the system and practice among many others.
With his high demands from broadcast professionals, gone where the days of sanctions, fines and outright punishments from unethical practices by Broadcast organisation, which had been reduced to the barest minimum.
The operations of Broadcast organisations in Nigeria in accordance with the NBC regulatory code and practice had instill sanity in practising ethics and training among the Radio and Television stations in Nigeria.
This had led to the establishment of more Radio and TV stations in the last one year including the NYSC Radio along with other private stations.
The new NBC code is vigorously being pursued with modest amendment in tandem with global practices and local considerations, to reduce the incidence of misinformations and needles tension in all ramifications across the country.
Ilelah had embarked on continuity of policies and programmes of the commission particularly the digitisation policy of NBC, with free TV already launched in Lagos, , while Kano, Porthacourt and other parts of the country on his assumption of duty.
Staff training and retraining, payment of both outstanding allowances with offsetting of the financial commitment of the staffers engaged by the previous management, showed his desire for continuity and result oriented management.
He also introduced reforms that will not only improved the services of NBC to broadcast stations in Nigeria, but showed the application of his wealth of experience garnered over the decades from wholly foreign broadcast organisations.
These positive development that had brought conducive atmosphere to the practice of broadcast journalism in line with the tenets of democratic practice and government in Nigeria.
With Ilelah at the helms of affairs, seamless practices from private and public broadcast stations had being restored in recent times.
This had attracted alot of commendations from both private and public entities including critical stakeholders in the broadcast media industry in Nigeria.
ABUBAKAR YUSUF, A Public Affairs Analyst, writes From Abuja , All inquiries to [email protected].
