Posted by By Ibe Ifeanyi on
POPULAR musician and actress, Onyeka Onwenu has condemned the continued incursion of South Africa television into Nigeria, saying it has negative impact on local culture.
POPULAR musician and actress, Onyeka Onwenu has condemned the continued incursion of South Africa television into Nigeria, saying it has negative impact on local culture.
Blaming the situation on poor funding of broadcasting by government, Onwenu called for improvement of the sector through adequate funding of the industry.
Speaking with The Guardian in an interview in Benin, Onwenu said she was disappointed that "Nigeria lagged behind South-Africa in broadcasting."
Her words: "Broadcasting has been neglected. Whereas there has been innovative technology available, we have not availed ourselves of them.
"I am disappointed that we are lagging behind South-Africa after we got television before it, and the country is ahead of us."
Onwenu added: "South-Africa has been making incursions into Nigeria in terms of broadcasting while Nigeria is seen by the rest of Africa only through MNET.
"This is not good for the image of Nigeria and promotion of its culture. In fact you find that even our traditional dances are beginning to incorporate Macosa moves into their dance. We are losing something."
Onwenu bemoaned the performance of broadcasters and attributed it to lack of adequate funding that would ensure continuous training and retraining of broadcasters.
"I am not impressed with their professional performance. We are not spending enough money on continuous training. As a broadcaster, you have to be updating your knowledge of things happening around you and around the world. And so, our broadcasters are not getting the desired exposure and the training they should have" she said.
On the way forward, Onwenu said: "I have been put on the board of the Nigeria Television Authorities (NTA) and we are transforming to see how we can redress the situation. This is because it is not totally the fault of management... I think there has to be total re-orientation of our priorities in that sector. We have to pump money to up grade our services."
On the crises rocking the People's Democratic Party in which she is a member, Onwenu said the situation was not peculiar to the party.
" There is no party that is perfect. We don't claim to be perfect in the PDP. We should realise that we can't achieve all overnight. Democracy is an evolving process and within the process we can make mistakes because we are humans. But we will get it right at the end of the day. We don't have a choice but to set it right," she said.
The musician also commended the PDP government on its fight against corruption.