Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, says he intends to raise the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) to the standard of Cable News Network (CNN) through the $500 million loan being sought for.
The minister spoke during an appearance before the Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Loans to defend the loan the ministry applied for from President Muhammadu Buhari’s $29.96 billion loan for funding infrastructure in the country.
According to him, the NTA has the “manpower and the technology” but the only thing left was to digitise the network.
Mohammed said the creative industry was not just about television but also about film, music, fashion and photography, and that the industry employs over one million young persons directly and indirectly.
“If this project is approved, there will be more visibility for our people in the music, fashion and film industries,” he said.
“In 2014, we made $23 million from music alone and about $53 million in 2019 and we are looking forward to making $83 million in 2025. You can imagine the kind of growth we will have if only we digitise all the NTA stations in the country.”
Mohammed added that the loan would be used to establish the media and culture industry centre at the cost of $245 million, digitise all NTA stations at $11 million and construct integrated television services to infuse on network.
“The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in 2006 gave June 17, 2015, as deadline for all members of the organisation to migrate from analogue to digital. Regrettably, we were unable to meet the deadline alongside most countries in sub-Sahara Africa, the deadline was moved to 2017, which was not reliable and today the target is June 17, 2020,” he said.
