By Amos Tauna
The Director General, National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) Ishaq Modibbo Kawu, says the migration from analogue to digital broadcasting in Nigeria has enhanced quality broadcasting in the nation.
Kawu stated this Monday in Kaduna, northwest Nigeria while inspecting facilities by the signal distributor ahead of the switch over in northwest region of the country.
He emphasized that though the switch over was an expensive process, it represents one of the best options in the sector.
Mr. Kawu explained that digital switch over was part of the process for kick starting the national digital economy at a time the country was gradually moving out of recession.
The MD said the equipment were top class transmission and monitoring system that would facilitate the switch over, adding that, what remained was getting the local channels into the system for the process to be completed.
“There are areas in Kaduna that we have to do signal assessment and then take a decision about how to fill the gaps. But the challenge and most important thing is that we need to reach the people of Kaduna State.
“As a matter of fact, you know Nigerians are very intrepid in business sense. A couple of weeks ago, we discovered that some people are bringing boxes from Abuja to Kaduna in anticipation of the fact that we are coming to establish signal, we told the people that we will let them know when the boxes are going to be activated, but those buying the boxes discovered that there was no signal in the city and that gives us problem because we need to establish signal here before the boxes could be working,” he stated.
The DG urged journalists to be part of agent of change in the transition to digital system, by helping to educate and inform Nigerians that the choice for a switch over is the right thing to do.
The NBC, he said, plans to install the digital system in Gombe, Kwara, Osun, Enugu and Delta States in addition to the ones on ground.
The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), had given Nigeria a deadline of June 2017 to migrate from analogue to digital broadcasting.
Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed had flagged the digital migration on April 30, 2016 in Jos, central Nigeria, kick-starting the phase by phase roll-over process in the country.