FG to reposition government-owned media establishments, says Minister

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has said that all Federal Government-owned media establishments will soon be repositioned for better efficiency.

Lai Mohammed, Information Minister

The statement is contained in a statement the minister issued in Doha and which was made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Monday.

The statement was made available by the Special Adviser to the Minister on Media, Mr Segun Adeyemi.

NAN recalls that the minister on Sunday visited the sprawling Al Jazeera Media Training and Development Centre in Doha.

Mohammed said he was not satisfied with the performance of the government-owned media establishments and had decided to reposition them for better efficiency and to be more competitive.

Mohammed was conducted round the facility by Al Jazeera’s Director, Mr Mounir Daymi, with other officials of the centre.

The statement quoted the minister as saying that his visit was in furtherance of his efforts to forge training and development collaboration with the international news network.

``We want a brand new television station that will be among the best in the world and it is possible,'' the minister said.

He said he would soon invite the officials of the Media Training and Development Centre to Nigeria for a need-assessment visit.

The minister said the centre would be invited to Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) since the centre trained radio and television journalists as well as photographers.

He said the training and re-training of journalists were very important because the media industry was very dynamic.

The minister said journalists from the government-owned broadcasting stations could be attached to Al Jazeera for a few weeks under an exchange programme that would be mutually beneficial to all.

He said the performance of the public-funded media establishments had been affected by the lack of adequate attention to training, programming and infrastructure over the years.

In his speech, Daymi said the media centre had trained about 30,000 journalists, mostly from the Middle East, China and Africa in its 12 years of existence.

He said the centre, which was set up primarily to train Al Jazeera journalists, extended training to journalists from outside the station.

The director said the training was aimed at imparting knowledge acquired by Al Jazeera over the past 20 years.

The centre, which is situated in a different location from the Al Jazeera headquarters complex, boasts of state-of-the-art studios, complete with video walls, classrooms and control rooms, among others. (NAN)