Broadcasting
Communiqué from Africast Emphasizes Digitisation Imperative
With the theme “Digitisation and the Challenges of Broadcasting,” the 2008 Africast Conference and Exhibitions featured the presentation of scholarly papers by eminent personalities, professionals, veterans and captains of the broadcast industry from Africa and beyond.
Communiqué issued by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) stated the resolutions of the participants to include: that digitisation of broadcasting is not only necessary but also imperative in Africa. This is because it has the potentials of revolutionizing the media and communication activities within the continent, creating better business opportunities, redefining national values and generally placing the continent on the map of the digitally compliant world; that African countries must strive towards meeting the ITU deadline of June 17, 2015 for broadcasting to transit from analogue to digital. Otherwise, they stand the risk of paying the painful penalty of being isolated from the world’s broadcasting community.
That policy makers and investors should take into consideration the peculiarity of the African environment, in terms of poor infrastructure and low personal income in planning for the inevitable transition from analogue to digital broadcasting. Thus, although some progress have been made towards digitisation on the continent, as exemplified by Mauritius, South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya and Nigeria, a lot remains, to be done; that African governments should, as a matter of urgency, enact and enforce laws banning the importation of analogue television sets into their countries. Also, they should, through effective legislation and policy implementation, fast-track the transition process in their countries. Both measures would help protect the continent from being turned into a dumping ground for obsolete analogue broadcast equipment.
That African countries must adopt a deliberate policy of carrying their peoples along in the campaign for a successful transition from analogue to digital broadcasting. Accordingly, they should immediately embark on aggressive public enlightenment campaign to mobilize and sensitize the public on the process, benefits and implications of digitisation; that the success and sustenance of digitisation in Africa will also require that
Governments on the continent lay emphasis on manpower development, encourage a sustainable maintenance culture, and energize their broadcast regulatory bodies through adequate funding and less political interference.
“The digitisation of broadcasting has far-reaching implications and daunting challenges for governments, broadcasters, broadcast regulators and the people. The success of the transition will depend, to a great extent, on the co-operation of these parties and their willingness and readiness to play effectively their expected roles; African countries should realize that, no matter what effort they make to achieve total digitisation, some of the challenges associated with the transition would still remain due to the peculiarities of the African environment. Therefore, there is the need to set up appropriate mechanism to absorb the inevitable challenges, in order to make any meaningful progress towards digitisation.”
“The use of converter boxes or set-top boxes on the switchover from analogue to digital broadcasting should be seen only as a stop-gap measure. Therefore, African countries should strive for local production of digital broadcasting facilities, if they must save costs, achieve technological development and enjoy the full benefits of digitisation; operators of the broadcast industry must be prepared to re-equip their stations with appropriate digital equipment, recruit and train their personnel and produce adequate local content to service the increasing number of available channels resulting from digitisation.”
“Digitised broadcasting emphasizes content production and distribution. African broadcasters should plan towards feeding their viewers and listeners with adequate and quality African programmes.” That Advisory Committee on Digitisation in African countries should research into the needs and implications of the transition project, so that they can offer useful advice to the government for a hitch free transition.
Digitisation implies more than its technological dimensions. Governments should formulate comprehensive policies on digitization, and enact enabling legislations, based on the realities of their local environments; that planning for digitisation should include the procurement of spare parts along with the digital equipment. The old practice of acquiring broadcasting equipment without attendant back-up spares had been the bane of broadcasting in many African countries.
That broadcast regulatory bodies in Africa should look beyond monitoring content on broadcasting stations and creating awareness on the forthcoming digitisation. They should equally concern themselves with the quality and state of broadcast equipment, infrastructure and personnel all of which are indispensable for successful digitization; that African governments should be ready to empower their people to enable them benefit from the dividends of digitisation. This, they can do by subsidizing the cost of Set-top boxes as the United States of America did in preparation for her own switchover on 17th February, 2009.
That each African country should consider floating a single national carrier, while allowing individual stations to concentrate on content production. The prevailing practice whereby stations spend their fortunes on equipment provision and maintenance, while neglecting content does not augur well for broadcasting in the digital era; that while fashioning out a legislative framework for digitisation, frequency management and licencing, African broadcast regulatory authorities should consider, seriously, either to grant a single licence for both multiplex and channel, or a separate licence for each.
Digitisation poses a great deal of challenges to content producers, and so the older broadcasting stations, which have vintage programmes in their archives, should seek to meet the challenges partly by digitizing such archival materials; digitisation demands comprehensive planning, adequate funding, improved know-how, infrastructural development and aggressive content production, and African countries should anticipate and tackle these challenges if they were to transit to digital broadcasting by or before the ITU deadline of 2015.
Since most modern day broadcast equipment are software-driven, African broadcasters should seek to sustain productivity by recruiting younger generation personnel who are computer literate, in addition to training and retraining; that African broadcasters should use the forum of Africast to evolve a global African brand with a view to meeting the growing yearnings of a global audience for a truly African content that confers beauty and dignity on the continent as opposed to the present distorted image of war, hunger, corruption and disease.
At the switchover to digital broadcasting, African countries should reserve and equitably allocate the freed spectrum for the future development of digital community broadcasting, using appropriate technologies. Meanwhile, there should be no switch off timetable for FM and AM sound broadcasting services until there is a proven, viable digital alternative; that community broadcasting has far-reaching social, political, economic and cultural advantages, so African countries should ease off the stringent licencing and regulatory requirements to encourage the emergence, and facilitate the growth, of community broadcasting on the continent.
African broadcasters were advised to take advantage of the technological innovations as they plan for the transition to digital broadcasting; African governments and broadcasters must ensure that, from now, only quality digital–ready broadcast equipment are imported into the continent. However, where there are restrictions or high tariffs, governments should grant immediate relief, to make the digitisation process less cumbersome and pain-free for operators in the industry.
Public and private broadcasters in Africa have made significant efforts to acquire and install digital equipment in anticipation of the global switch over to digital broadcasting. Be that as it may, they were advised to collaborate and co-operate with one another for a smooth and cost effective transition process.
The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa CCIE, has reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to deepening inter-agency collaboration as he received the Director General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Mr Charles Ebuebu, on a courtesy visit aimed at exploring strategic partnerships in digital transformation and regulatory frameworks across Nigeria’s media and technology sectors.
Speaking during the meeting, Inuwa stated that digital transformation and regulation are inseparable in Nigeria’s rapidly evolving digital ecosystem. He also emphasised that digital transformation is not a one-off project but a continuous journey that requires constant improvement, periodic target-setting, and organisational adaptability to emerging realities.
According to the NITDA boss, the agency deliberately embarked on a transformational journey to reposition itself from a traditional civil service structure to a high-velocity, smart public sector organisation. He noted that when the agency began its transformation drive, a significant percentage of its workforce came from the mainstream civil service, bringing with it entrenched bureaucratic mindsets and rigid operational practices. This, he said, necessitated a conscious decision to change the narrative.
“More than 70 or 80% of our staff came from the mainstream public service, and we know the mindset of public servants, so we started changing that narrative by focusing on people, resetting mindsets, building capacity, and fostering a culture that supports innovation and accountability,” he noted.
Inuwa explained that NITDA’s approach to digital transformation was anchored on three core pillars: people, processes, and technology. He stressed that no matter how advanced technology may be, it cannot deliver value without the right people and efficient processes in place.
He further disclosed that the agency undertook a comprehensive cultural reorientation programme, supported by cultural audits and initiatives aimed at creating psychological safety within the organisation.
“This was critical to enabling staff at all levels to freely contribute ideas, challenge existing processes constructively, and engage in horizontal and vertical collaboration without fear of reprisal,” he stated.
He noted that culture remains the foundation upon which any successful strategy must stand, adding that “no matter how good a strategy is, without the right culture, execution will fail.”
Providing further insight into the transformation journey, he explained that NITDA adopted an integrated framework encompassing people, process, culture, content, and technology. Through this framework, the agency identified and addressed deeply rooted bureaucratic tendencies such as command-and-control structures, risk aversion, and excessive dependence on directives from senior leadership.
According to the DG, “these reforms paved the way for trust-based delegation, inter-departmental collaboration, and process optimisation”.
He further revealed that NITDA documented over 396 internal processes and subsequently streamlined them to eliminate inefficiencies and repetitive executive approvals. He cited examples where routine operational tasks that previously required multiple approvals at the Director General’s level were redesigned to empower departments as gatekeepers, allowing leadership to focus on strategic priorities.
This process optimisation, he said, also created the foundation for automation and the integration of digital tools.
On capacity building, the DG disclosed that all NITDA staff underwent mandatory artificial intelligence (AI) training, reinforcing the agency’s position that AI is a tool for enhancing productivity rather than replacing human capital.
He noted that staff across departments are now leveraging AI to improve workflows, generate ideas, and transition from manual administrative roles to AI-enabled system administration.
Inuwa added that technology deployment at NITDA is deliberately driven by business value rather than trend adoption, stressing that technology must support clearly defined processes and organisational objectives.
He announced that the agency has developed a comprehensive digital transformation playbook, capturing lessons learned from its journey, which it is willing to share with NBC and other government institutions.
To advance collaboration with NBC, Inuwa proposed concrete areas of partnership, including sharing the agency’s digital transformation playbook, delivering tailored training and capacity-building programmes, enrolling NBC staff in digital literacy initiatives developed with global technology partners such as Cisco, and providing technical support for modernising regulatory frameworks to align with the evolving digital and media ecosystem.
Earlier in this remark, Mr Ebuebu called for deeper collaboration between the NBC and NITDA, describing the partnership as long overdue in the face of rapid media and technology convergence.
He noted that although he has had several insightful interactions with the DG NITDA in the past, it was important to institutionalise cooperation between both agencies to address emerging developments in media, technology, data governance, and Nigeria’s digital future.
While calling for closer ties between the two agencies, he emphasised that a strategic partnership between NBC and NITDA is critical to effectively regulate the evolving media ecosystem, harness technology for content creation and distribution, promote the growth of local media, facilitate knowledge transfer, and protect Nigeria’s cultural and national interests.
Broadcasting
DG NCC Tasks University Dons on Research Commercialization, IP Management to Build Global Competitive Ecosystems
Dr. John Asein, director-general, Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC), has charged universities to leverage Intellectual Property (IP), innovation management and research commercialisation to build vibrant, sustainable and globally competitive ecosystems.
The DG stated this while delivering a paper on: ‘’Research Commercialisation, IP Policy and Innovation Management’’ at the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU) organised Business Clinic themed: Unlocking University-Driven Business Ecosystems: Innovation, Partnerships and Sustainable Enterprise Models in Abuja.
The programme was targeted at engaging Vice-Chancellors, principal officers and other key officers in Nigerian Universities in a practical dialogue on how to transit their institutions into thriving business ecosystems through innovation, enterprise development and strategic partnerships.
In his presentation, Dr. Asein, disclosed that Universities are now recognised as engines of national development and innovation hubs that must connect scholarship to business.
He noted that with over 300 Universities in Nigeria, there is need for structured pathways to turn ideas into commercial outcomes while attention should be focused on IP assets in our universities in order to harness them in a safe, sustainable and satisfactory manner.
The DG NCC speaking further on leveraging resources from the creativity locked up within the university system, harped on the need to harness the soft power of our youth as Nigeria’s most valuable natural resources are its people.
Drawing demography from Nigeria youthful population, he observed that over 70 percent of Nigerians who are under the age of 30 are mostly in the university system studying. These youths, he noted, shape cultures, technology and innovation through creativity and digital skills.
He tasked universities to become innovation factories where young people can explore ideas, protect their IP and grow startups by integrating innovation culture, entrepreneurship training and IP awareness into its learning environment.
He equally urged Universities to look beyond the sciences to commercialize traditional knowledge-based innovations and harness the potentials in the creative arts disciplines like music, visual arts, theatre arts and others for commercial outcomes.
Dr. Asein, recommended that universities as centres of learning, should take the lead in using the IP system for promoting education and learning, wealth creation, revenue generation and institutional development.
Underscoring the need for all universities to have an IP Policy, he noted that the Model developed by the Nigerian Copyright Commission in partnership with the CVCNU is a good starting point.
The Secretary-General, CVCNU, Prof. Andrew Haruna, presented the welcome address at the event while the Director, Technology Innovation and Commercialisation, NOTAP, Mrs. Adah H.N. Mokolo-Oladunke represented the Director-General, NOTAP at the event.
The 2025 CVCNU Business Clinic witnessed attendance from representatives of Public and Private Universities across the 36 States in Nigeria.
Drone
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will invest $115 million in counter-drone technology to safeguard the 2026 FIFA World Cup and events marking America’s 250th independence anniversary, creating a dedicated office for rapid drone system deployment.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described drones as “the new frontier of American air superiority,” stressing the need to counter threats from drug cartels using unmanned aircraft for smuggling and surveillance, alongside incidents like a 2025 NFL stadium drone flight and 2024 New Jersey sightings.
The funding supports 11 World Cup host cities expecting over one million visitors, building on FEMA’s $250 million grants to those states and addressing risks heightened by cartels’ advancing tech, including a reported FBI tracking plot in Mexico.
DHS has conducted over 1,500 counter-drone missions since 2018, with the new Program Executive Office accelerating acquisitions amid President Trump’s border security push.
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