By Moses Idika
Playing host to the Republic of Niger Minister of Communication, Koubra Abdoulaye, in June, Information and Culture Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, dropped the hint that Nigeria would switch over from analogue to digital broadcasting in six states across the six geo-political zones within the next month. He even promised that the Federal Government would assist the neighbouring country to successfully transit from analogue to digital broadcasting through the Digital Switchover (DSO) project.
By this, the minister said Nigeria would make available to Niger, the legal framework for its DSO project, as well as its expertise in the area of signal distribution, Set-Top-Box (STB) manufacturing and content production. Mohammed also said Nigeria had the political will to make the DSO a success story for the benefit of all Nigerians and the Economic Community of West African States in the areas of the application of the digital dividends.
Regardless, recent media reports indicate that the hope of Nigerians enjoying the benefits of digital switchover in the country might be a tall dream after all. The media have been awash lately with allegations of corruption and abuse of office levelled against those executing the DSO process. In fact, a broadcast engineer had seemingly spilled the beans, when he recently levied allegation of use of obsolete equipment including transmitters by one of the signal distributors. The equipment being installed, according to him, had been discontinued by its manufacturers since 2013.
Being a public company, the natural thing is that the allegations be properly investigated. Therefore, the calls for a probe of the process are in the right direction. Nigerians are, indeed, tired of long tales on the switchover project and the wonders it would do to the nation’s economy.
It is not enough for the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to announce that Nigeria would adopt phased implementation, beginning with six states, namely: Enugu in the Southeast; Kaduna in the Northwest; Gombe in the Northeast; Kwara in the North Central; Delta in the South-South and Osun in the Southwest. What Nigerians need is action, after all Nigeria has shifted the goal post for DSO in the broadcasting industry about four times: 2007, 2012, 2015 and 2017. Even the June 2017 date was again recently missed.
Nonetheless, that does not mean that some milestones had not been recorded especially in the past one year when the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration boldly confronted the issue. It started with the pilot switch over project flagged off in the Tin City of Jos, Plateau State on April 30 last year and the subsequent switch on of Abuja. In addition, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo representing President Muhammadu Buhari, last December commissioned the DSO project of Pinnacle Broadcast Limited, covering Abuja, where he described the promoters as patriotic Nigerians.
However, the expectation of Kaduna residents to begin to enjoy the digital blitz has been in limbo since August when the signal distributor reportedly completed work on the broadcast site. The DG of NBC, while on inspection of facilities at the project site, had commended the company for the level of job done and quality of equipment installed. He said that the commission would come up with modalities on how to distribute Set Top Boxes in Kaduna to ensure smooth transition from analogue to digital switchover in the state.
Even as Kawu said that NBC had kept some boxes for Kaduna State switch over in view of the fact that the state was a major urban city, indications have emerged that the availability and cost of set top boxes were hampering the switch over in the state. Industry experts attribute this challenge to non-adherence to the Federal Government white paper on the DSO, as some extraneous bottlenecks were introduced into the whole process due to selfish interests.
The place of content aggregators in the digital switchover process is one that calls for immediate review if the nation must make any progress in the sector. Building the DSO sites across the states without rolling out (switchover) does not make any sense. The penetration cannot be achieved without seamless access to set top boxes.
The truth is that digital switchover holds much prospect for Nigeria given that it is a process of kickstarting the digital national economy; it would create massive jobs and wealth along the value-chain. It would in fact, totally transform the creative industry.
Government therefore, must act swiftly to resolve the contentious issues holding the process down over the years; in an open and transparent manner beginning with ensuring that the right equipment are deployed for the switch over and the actors play by the rules.
Idika, a communication scholar, writes from Enugu via [email protected]