Nigeria’s Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, believes NTA can be on par with one of the world’s biggest news companies, CNN and the likes.
However, he says in order to achieve that, the Nigerian Television Authority needs a loan of $500 million.
Note that NTA is a Government-owned media company while CNN is owned by WarnerMedia.
Moreover, NTA was inaugurated in 1980 while CNN was launched in 1980. However, the reach of both companies is apparently miles apart.
CNN is widely considered the biggest broadcasting company behind just the BBC.
Now, the Nigerian minister of information believes if NTA gets a loan of $500, they could compete with the biggest in the world.
According to The Guardian, Lai Muhammed made this remark when he appeared before the senate committee on local and foreign loans.
The $500 million naira loan is reportedly part of the $30 billion loan President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration wants the national assembly to approve.
“If this project is approved, there will be more visibility for our people in the music, fashion and film industries. 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,” the minister said.
You can imagine the kind of growth we will have if only we digitise all the NTA stations in the country.” he continued.
The minister went on to say the creative media boasts the highest number of employed youth after agriculture.
“Apart from agriculture, which is the largest employer of labour in Nigeria, especially the youths, the next largest employer of labour is the creative industry,” Lai Mohammed continued.
“Regrettably, we were unable to meet the deadline along-side most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the deadline was moved to 2017, which was not reliable and today the target is June 17, 2020.” he said
