From Walter Ukaegbu, Abuja

Former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, has stated that broadcasting has been put into negative uses as a result of ownership and vested interest in the business.
Jega, who is now a professor of Political Science at the Bayero University Kano, delivering a lecturer during the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) annual lectures yesterday in Abuja, said publicly owned broadcasting stations now promote private or personal interest rather than serve the public good.
According to him, “public ownership has increasingly become state/government ownership and public broadcasting has become state/government propaganda. In contemporary Nigeria, whatever our vision of the new Nigeria in broadcasting needs to be repositioned and empowered to primarily serve public good, in order for it to make positive contributions to the task of addressing the challenges of the new Nigeria.”
He said broadcasting has an important role to play in the democratic development of Nigeria, while explaining that it had played some of this role epileptically over the years but has contributed to the trails and tribulations of democratisation in Nigeria.
The former INEC chairman said that as Nigeria struggle to reposition and re-invent as a viable consolidated democracy, it needs to review what role broadcasting has played and determined what role it should continue to play positively in support of this aspiration of Nigerians.

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