From Segun Babatunde in Bauchi
Bauchi State Government has been called upon to as a matter of urgency, focus attention on the dilapidation of the state owned media organizations, Bauchi State Television (BATV) , Bauchi Radio Corporation (BRC) and the Ministry of Information in order to make them operational again.
The call was made on Monday by the Bauchi State Chairman of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Comrade Umar Said while receiving the report of a special committee set up to look into the problems affecting the operations of the media houses.
Umar said that the media houses have suffered neglect in the past which has led to the dilapidation of their equipment to the of becoming non functional stressing that government must act urgently to salvage whatever is remaining of the organizations.
He further lamented that as it is now, the organizations are operating with a large number of casual staff who he said are mostly not trained to be able to work effectively saying that the NUJ recently organized an in-house training program for them to bring them up to date.
The NUJ Chairman while commending the committee for a job well done assured that the recommendations will be forwarded to the State Government for possible implementation saying, “as a body, we have done our own part, it behooves on the government to do the needful”.
While submitting the report, the Committee Chairman, Inuwa Bello said that the committee during its assignment discovered that the media organizations are in a very bad shape and need to be attended to by the government immediately.
Inuwa Bello who once served as the MD of BRC and the longest serving Director of Information in the Ministry of Information added that the committee recommended for attention for the organizations in three ways, short terms, midterm and long-term considering the paucity of funds.
He however warned that the issue of merging the organizations should be done with caution to avert future problems saying that, “the committee is recommending that the issue of merger should be done with utmost caution”.
According to him, “before the merger, the organizations should be made to stand firmly independently first, then, a technical committee should be set up to look into the necessity of the merger. That is our position”.
