In a communique issued at the end of its monthly congress on Friday the Oyo State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, advised media houses to prioritise payment of their staff salaries and provide them with insurance coverage.
While noting a significant increase in the number of radio stations in the state, particularly in Ibadan and the growth of multi-million naira investments of these media owners towards creating jobs and a new lease of lives for journalists, the Congress expressed concern that some media owners establish media outfits primarily to advance their political interests.
The Congress noted that the new stations often employ unqualified personnel at the expense of trained media professionals.
The increase in the number of radio stations is not peculiar to Oyo State which now has over 50.
Across the country, many private radio stations have been licenced by the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission ( NBC) and commenced operations. In Lagos, there are not less than 77 FM stations.
Due to the high-cost operations and lack of enough advertising patronage to go around, many of the stations are known to have been battling to remain on air. Not only have they not been able to hire qualified staff as required by the Code of Broadcasting by NBC, but staff are not regularly paid the low salaries they are offered when employed.
Some staff have been forced to resort to various unethical practices to compensate themselves for the work they do.
The call by the Oyo State NUJ should not be for only private radio stations and other media owners in Oyo State but for all nationwide.
Journalists across media platforms in the country are generally experiencing hard times due to poor and irregular payments. Only a few media organisations have paid-up insurance policies for their staff.
For some media organisations that pay whenever they do, they don’t remit the tax and pension deductions from staff salaries to the appropriate agencies.
Priorising the payment of salaries of their workers and providing them insurance coverage among other suitable conditions of service is necessary to ensure their maximum productivity and commitment to best practice.
Just as they spend large amounts on equipment for their operations, media owners should also reckon with the need for regular and well-paid personnel without which they can not broadcast.
Journalists and broadcasters like other workers need to be insured against the various risks associated with their jobs to reassure them they and their families will be taken care of in case of any incident in the course of their duties.
As the Code of Ethics for Broadcasting clearly states, broadcasting as a specialised section of the media industry, with its mode of professionalism, demands a high level of specialisation
and professional skills, which only qualified professionals can offer instead of the unqualified personnel some owners are hiring.
To ensure that private stations abide by the code and requirements for their operations, they need to be regularly monitored by the NBC and media groups and called to order when necessary as the Oyo State Council of NUJ did.
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Editorial Board members: Abdulwarees Solanke (Chairman), Mrs Goodness Chibunna, Dr Qasim Akinreti, Dr Olayinka Oyegbile, Professor Oloruntola Sunday, Mr Lekan Otufodunrin.