Bauchi Assembly Urges Swift Digitisation Of State-Owned Media

The Bauchi State House of Assembly has called for the quick digitisation of state-owned media organisations to enable them to move away from analogue broadcasting.

The Chairman, House Committee on Information, Gazali Abubakar, made the call on Friday when the committee visited the state radio and television stations in Bauchi in line with its oversight function.

Abubakar said that digitisation of broadcasting offered a lot of opportunities with far-reaching benefits in economics, politics, education, entertainment, science and technology and several other ways.

“Impact of digitisation on television and radio will be revolutionary and I cannot agree less.

“It will be able to raise revenue for the state and create jobs.

“That is why we are calling on the state government to hasten the process of digitisation of Bauchi Television Authority and Bauchi Radio Corporation,” the lawmaker said.

The Managing Directors of the radio corporation and television authority, Alhaji Sirajo Ma’aji and Alhaji Ibrahim Umar, respectively, expressed worry over the poor funding of the two stations.

According to them, the government-owned media need more funding and an increase in budgetary allocation to enhance their services.

They also appealed for the engagement of casual workers to meet up with the shortage of personnel in the two stations.

In a remark, the Commissioner for Information, Alhaji Dayyibu Chiroma, gave assurance that the state government was committed to the digitisation project.

Chiroma said: “Government is doing everything possible to ensure the digitisation is completed before the second quater of 2023.

He said the engagement of more personnel in the media organisations would be resolved in due course.