CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the
Study.
Radio came to be as a result of the
invention of technology, therefore the history of radio in Nigeria started way
back with British Broadcasting Corporation. Radio broadcasting was introduced
into Nigeria in 1933 by the then colonial government, it relayed the overseas
service of the British Broadcasting Corporation through wired system with
loudspeakers at the listening end. The service was called Radio Diffusion
System (RDS). From the RDS emerged the Nigeria Broadcasting Service (NBS) in
April 1951.Mr T.W Chamlers, a Briton and controller of the BBC Light
Entertainment programme was the first Director –General of the NBS. The Nigeria
Broadcasting Corporation, NBC came into being in April 1957 through an act of
parliament No.39 of 1956 and the Director General was Mr J.A.C Knott Obe. In
1978, the
Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation
was re-organized to become the Federal
Radio Corporation of Nigeria, FRCN
(http://ww2.radionigeria.gov.ng. April 24,2012. page one).
To Uwakwe (2005:165) the third world countries today is being
overwhelmed by the western communication structures. With satellites on the
space, the CNN and BBC for instance, continue to invade the third world
countries effortlessly. Therefore broadcasting both radio and television,
started simultaneously in Eastern Nigeria, Enugu regional capital on the 1st
of October,1960. During the civil war, the Eastern Nigeria Broadcasting
Corporation (ENBC) was known as Radio Biafra. After the war, it was named the
East Central State Broadcasting Service (ECBS) stationed at Enugu. With the
creation of old Anambra and Imo states in 1976, it changed to Anambra
Broadcasting Service. With the creation of the new Anambra and Enugu States in
1991 and the subsequent disengagement of the staff on March 16,1992 ,the
Anambra Broadcasting Service, Enugu gave birth to Anambra Broadcasting Service
(R/TV) Awka and Enugu State Broadcasting Service (ESBS) Enugu.
After the state creation, the first movement was to
Onitsha- the location of the AM Station. From Onitsha, the headquarters moved
to Awka in January 1993 and ABS latter
moved to its permanent site on the Enugu/Onitsha Express Way in Awka in
January,2002.Today ABS Radio transmits on the frequency 88.5 FM with the four
stations(2 television and 2 radio) both at Onitsha and
Awka,(http://www.absr-tvawka.com April 24, 2012,page one).
The founding fathers of Onitsha migrated from Benin between 1630 and
1680 and settled immediately after the River Niger. Onitsha in effect started
its growth as a waterside settlement often known as the “waterside town” (Udo
1981:8). In 1857, when the trade expedition led by McGregor Laird on the Niger
arrived at Onitsha, it had a small market like other neighbouring Ibo markets,
which was being held then every four days. In the company of the expedition,
was Reverend Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a freed slave who led the Church Missionary
Society (CMS) team. The CMS Group first arrived at Onitsha before the Roman
Catholic Mission (RCM) which came later. These two Christian religious groups
were responsible for the establishment of schools and colleges in Onitsha,
dating from the 19th Century. Historically, Onitsha has exercised a great deal
of political, economic, and social influence over the surrounding regions. The
neighbouring towns of Obosi, Nkpor, Oba, Ogidi, Nkwelle – Ezunaka, and Umunya
constitute parts of the region of the city’s influence.
The
influx of traders from all parts of the country and the Cameroon to buy at
Onitsha is an important factor that invariably contributed to the town’s
physical and population growth so far. A major feature of the Onitsha’s growth
and attraction of traders over the years is that, non-indigenes accounted for
more than 70% the total population. There are two local government areas in the
Onitsha metropolis therefore the main concern of this study is the Onitsha
north local government area, which is where the villages are situated and is
underdeveloped. The cases of slums, physical and environmental unalertness show
that structures are built any how, anywhere. High rising buildings are
constructed with hardly any road access to them, and with no water supplies
even on the ground floors, much less on the higher floors. That the city is
located on the banks of the great River Niger makes no difference to the
paucity of its water supply. Several other sections/ neighbourhoods of the city
are a built up of unregulated, congested, ramshackle housing surrounded by
indescribable filth. There are no drainage facilities or solid waste disposal
facilities. Mountains of refuse are common features everywhere and they
continue to creep increasingly into the limited road spaces”. While slums are
residential areas in towns and cities, that lack adequate access to water and
sanitation and secure tenure; and their buildings are of poor structural
quality with insufficient living area UN-HABITAT (2002:1).
According to UN-HABITAT (2002:2), slums create the conditions for poor
health and insecurity and are the most visible forms of poverty in the city.
While there have been concerted efforts at the national, state, local and
global levels to eradicate poverty, the efforts to effectively improve the
lives of people living in slums have either been missing or less than desired.
An assessment of the slum conditions in Onitsha and environs is therefore
imperative for devising appropriate strategies for addressing poverty reduction
and to achieve sustainable urbanization in the planning area. Epileptic
electricity supply has hampered industrial development, there are also bad
roads as a result of erosion, etc.
From this history, radio is known as the channel for the broadcasting of
marketing information especially in the development of the rural areas and is
popular as a result of its wide reach to a heterogeneous audience. This channel
remains by far, the most appropriate for a rural population that has an
illiteracy rate of nearly 90%. As a starting point, development cannot occur
without communication, many writings on rural development problems in Nigeria
reflect a wide spread of opinion as to the origin of the problem. However,
there seem to be a consensus that a combination of economic and political
factors has contributed in no small measure to the problem, (Mboho 2005:151).
Therefore rural development problems in Nigeria are multifarious, the classification
of the problems is therefore much more complex than one can think. Available
statistics indicate that more than 80% of her population live in the rural
area, yet most of her development efforts; providing basic facilities like
electricity, roads, water supply to mention but a few are concentrated in the
urban centre while the rural area remain outside the dynamics of modern
development processes (Mboho, 2005 p.154).
To Mboho (2005:155) these problems are
common to most African countries, they tend to be more acute in Nigeria where
the British colonial system failed to develop the rural areas. During the
colonial era, development was restricted to urban centres which provided
support for political and economic interests of colonial power and their
collaborators. Thus two powerful mutually impeding forces that can be
identified as the roots of Nigeria’s rural underdevelopment are firstly,
imperialism and neo-colonialism secondly, in the past, nationalist government
had depended on the theory that with a high rate of urban development,
modernization in rural area would be realized or at best be seen to occur. But
in recent times, however, this paradigm has been known to be irrelevant because
over the years, various government development plans and other polices have
failed to justify this assumption. In order to have a progressive
transformation there is need for effective communication strategies so as to
achieve a significant collective participation by the masses, for without this
any long run economic or social planning will either be more much less
effective than it could have been or it could even go in the wrong direction.
This brought about the mission of a
progressive mass communication policy of 1990 during the regime of Gen Ibrahim
Babangida, in the new global arena to help strengthen democratic practice, a
healthy culture, and popular participation in governance process. This vision
underscores the central place of a communication policy that is vibrant,
transparent and supportive of democratic and development goals (http://nigeriacommunityradio.org.September10,2011,
page one). The characteristics of radio are as follows:
1. Pervasiveness.
2. Immediacy.
3. Economic
medium.
4. Flexibility.
5. Presence.
6. Portability.
This brings about, information broadcast
by radio as contained in a summary file
that is processed by the market researchers. These files indicate the average
prices of the principal food products in the locality, such as maize, rice
(both local and imported), yams (tubers), garri, cassava, beans and other
commodities and services, apart from food stuff. This information is generally
broadcast on the day preceding, as well as on the market day of the locality in
which the radio station is situated. In addition to broadcasting prices, the
radio stations indicate the days on which the different markets are in
operation.
The broadcasts are made in the
dialects of the rural area in which the radio station is situated. The radio in
carrying out one of its duties, in developing the rural area, does what is
called development communication. Quoting Edeani in Okorie (2006:95)
development communication means the use of all forms of communication in
reporting, publicizing and promoting
development at all levels of the society .It implies communicating
development messages to the audience of the mass media, for example the radio.
It takes a form of transaction between the source and the receiver, in nature
it is participatory and collaborative of which the expected result is
behavioural change.
Furthermore, Okorie (2006:67) pointed out that the major aim of such
communication is to make better the lives of people in a given society
economically by encouraging them to understand the development agent, accept to
participate by developing their capacity and skill that will enable them change
from unprogressive and under developmental conditions of the past to a better
condition.
However,
Ekwelie (1992:2) explains that a remarkable feature of development
communication is that, it is only concerned with peoples welfare as defined by
them. Thus radio, places the self determined needs of the masses at the centre
of development communication. In this study, rural development implies
progressive economic change for the betterment of the conditions of the rural
area and consequently of the society. Therefore, development is not necessary
without communication in that, the whole mediated programmes of the radio
stations are packaged bearing in mind the development needs of the rural
dwellers, ranging from information on agriculture, health education, cultural
awareness, environment alert etc. And as such, there would be no need f+or the
media (radio) if there was even development. This goes to say that development
and communication are complementary.
Moreover, Nigeria is a developing country which has 250 different ethnic
groups with Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba as the three major tribes. All things being
equal, radio in developing the rural area is expected to facilitate, even
development in a given country by playing the following societal roles.
(1) Participatory
information/communication of the masses towards economic advancement.
(2) Promotion
of economic knowledge, understanding and wisdom in the society.
(3) Promotion
of employment opportunities for the people.
(4) Accelerate
the accomplishment of the economic development programmes or policies of the
Nigerian government.
(5) Help
in the national integration for national economic progress, which must be in
line with the policies or constitution of the government.
(6) Help
in marketing government development programmes or policies to the masses in the
society in order to encourage their adequate participation for collaborative
societal development.
(7) Teaching
and encouraging the use of modern strategies and technology in agriculture.
(8) Encouraging
the establishment of small industries.
(9) Help
in mass business/multi skill development.
(10) Encouragement
of self development and self reliance of individuals than on the society and government.
(11) Social
motivation/ mobilization of citizenry for proper participation in the nation’s
economic development process.
(12) Promotion
of right attitudinal and behavioural changes in citizens especially in the
economic development process.
(13) Setting
role models for the masses to emulate.
(14) Ensuring
responsiveness, responsibility and accountability of the government to the
electorates.
(15) Enhancing
effective resource management, etc.
1.2
Statement
of the Problem
The rapid growth of radio stations has
raised concerns over whether they are serving the public interest or the
interests of advertisers and their profit minded owners. On one hand, there are
people who argue that radio is a conduit of Western cultural products like
music and advertisements, which are suppressing development-oriented local
content. On the other hand, there are those who believe that radio has taken
the government and its policies closer to the people than in the days back, and
therefore helped to raise the level of awareness among the rural people, on
government policies, national and international events, etc. The fact is that
radio, play significant roles in the development of rural areas .Before the
advent of digitalization, AM radio (amplified modulation) was the order of the
day but today, FM radio (frequency modulation) is in vogue. As technology takes
us to a new stage, new things keep emerging and there is bound to be some
changes and new development. In the opinion of Okigbo (1990:343-344) the
argument may not end because, the effect of media communication will for a long
time remain a controversial issue among scholars in any society.
In
view of this, Ebeze (2002:282) stated that some schools of thought believe communication
cannot effect economic development in the society (Null effect media school of
thought) ,While some allude that some
people under certain circumstances behave in certain ways to certain mass media
messages (Minimalist media school of thought). The former, maintains that the
mass media have no effect at all on the society while the latter implies that
some kind of communication on some kind of issues brought to the attention of
some kind of people under some kind of condition, have some kind of effects.
Therefore the researcher aim is to find out empirically if radio, aid national development
(Using Onitsha LGA as a case study)
1.3
Objectives
of the Study
The
study tended to find out the role of radio in rural development. Therefore the
major focus of the study was:
1)
To determine whether radio has been making
positive impact in the development of Onitsha north local government.
2)
To examine the challenges of radio in rural
development.
3)
To find out the main contributions of radio in national
development
4)
To find out possible adjustments in the
editorial policies of the radio stations to help promote national development
1.4
Research Questions
Bearing
in mind the problem, which the research intends to solve as well as the aims
and objectives, which this research intends to achieve, the following are the
research questions:
i)
Does the community participate in the production
of the radio development programmes?
ii) Can
radio help in improving the lives of the people in Onitsha north local
government?
iii) Has
communication through radio made positive impact towards the development of the
Onitsha north local government?
iv) Can
sound radio information make Onitsha north local government
area’s development plans to fully
excel?
v) Are
there challenges in communicating the national development policies of Nigeria?
vi) Can
radio contribute meaningfully towards solving the development problems of the Onitsha north local
government?
1.5 Significance of the Study
Therefore it is
hoped that this research will be of help to many in the society and of great
relevance to the follow.
(1)The profession or practice.
(2) The
academia/ scholarship.
(3) The
researchers/ scholars in terms of future research efforts.
It is important
that radio serve the interests of the most vulnerable people in the rural area.
More than 80 percent of the people live in the rural areas, and up to 38 percent
of the country’s 27 million people live below the poverty line; they cannot
earn more than a dollar per day. Both the Poverty Alleviation Programme (PAP),
the National Mass Communication Policy, and the mission statements of many
radio stations concur on the need for radio to enhance development programmes
countrywide, since there is widespread need to improve the lives of the
population, thus this study becomes pertinent and relevant. In addition, this
study will be useful to the makers of communication and economic policies in
Nigeria.
1.6 Definition of Relevant Terms.
To enhance
comprehensive readiness of this work, the research deems it fit to define some
of the terminologies that are used in this work.
(1)
Radio
: This is a device used to disseminate information, to the diverse
audience.
(2)
Development: This is a change for the better in human,
cultural, socio-economic and political conditions of the individual and of the
society.