22 February 2017
The BBC is seeking a future star of African journalism for the BBC World News Komla Dumor Award, now in its third year.
Journalists from across the continent are invited to apply for the award, which aims to uncover and promote fresh talent from Africa.
The winner will spend three months at the BBC headquarters in London, gaining skills and experience.
Applications close on 15th March 2017 at 23:59 GMT.
The award was established to honour Komla Dumor, an exceptional Ghanaian broadcaster and presenter for BBC World News, who died suddenly aged 41 in 2014. In November 2014, the Association for International Broadcasting presented its Founders Award in memory of Komla to his widow, Kwansema.
You can read about eligibility criteria for the Award here.
27 February 2015
Abubakar Jijiwa, the Director General of Voice of Nigeria, the country’s official international broadcasting network, is stepping down after over two decades of service. Jijiwa has been an active participant in the AIB and a judge of the AIB awards.
The following farewell was written by his colleague Abdul-Warees Solanke head of the VON Training Centre:
In two weeks from now, the Director-General of Voice of Nigeria, Mallam Abubakar Bobboyi Jijiwa (MFR), will be exactly 22 years in the service of the Corporation, 10 years as its director general. Statutorily therefore, he will bow out from VON, an epoch deserving some sober reflection from this quintessential public manager and a rededication or commitment to work for the greater good of the country beyond life in VON.
In December last year, he similarly relinquished the chairmanship of the Broadcasting Organizations of Nigeria which he also led since 2004. His services as DG VON and Chairman BON has yielded huge dividends in the Nigerian broadcasting industry where players are more united, new grounds broken and talents nurtured due to his visionary and managerial disposition. Whenever there is an opportunity for assessment of his predecessors, Jijiwa always give them credit for providing the platform for his own achievements. All of them excelled within the circumstances they found themselves, he would always say.
Jijiwa came to VON in March 1993 from the News Agency of Nigeria where he was the Assistant General Manager (Enterprises). His sojourn in the federal government established media actually began at the Kaduna based-New Nigerian, where although he was employed as a senior accountant, he was drafted to the editorial board as a special correspondent because of his gift of the pen which he had been wielding as a regular contributor in the New Nigerian since his university days while studying accountancy at the University of Maiduguri.
Impressed by the brilliance and lucidity of his writings, the NN management felt it would be an under-utilization of talent consigning him to merely poring over cold figures instead of giving him the platform and the space on the pages to churn words and ideas to influence opinions. Since New Nigerian in 1984, Jijiwa has not looked back in providing leadership in the mass media, returning home briefly the invitation of the Gongola state government to serve as Secretary to the Fufor Local Government. After completing the Fufore assignment he returned to NN and shortly after in 1988, he picked an appointment with the News Agency of Nigeria as Ag. Chief Accountant, a position he held until 1989 when he was invited by his home government, Gongola to lead the state-owned radio station, Gongola Broadcasting Corporation.
In less than four years of heading GBC, later Adamawa Broadcasting Corporation, Jijiwa turned around the fortunes of the local radio station to an enviable one in the north east of Nigeria. ABC which had no permanent site and transmitting station, built one under Jijiwa. Then Jijiwa as the GM had been designated Director General and sole administrator of the corporation. With this feat, he was soon back at NAN as AGM enterprises in 1992 and in March 1993, he joined Voice of Nigeria as Director Finance and Supplies. But in-between his service in VON, he had the privilege of being invited home to serve as the Adamawa State commissioner for Budget, Economic Planning and Finance.
This rich experience jijiwa placed at the service of VON when he returned from his leave of absence and assumed office as Director Administration and Finance of the Corporation under Aremo Taiwo Allimi in 1999. Being the most senior director in VON when Aremo Allimi completed his single term in 2004, this rich experience also recommended him to the post of Ag. Director General. Again, this rich experience facilitated his confirmation as the substantive DG in March 2005 and secured him a reappointment in 2010.
As DG VON since the past eight years, Jijiwa has used this experience to pilot the affairs of the Broadcasting organizations of Nigeria (BON), the umbrella of all public and private broadcasting services in the country. Four of these eight years, he also used to etch Nigeria’s name on the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association hall of fame as he was elected CBA president in 2006 in the Indian capital, New Delhi for a two-year term, securing another CBA mandate in the Caribbean nation of the Bahamas in 2008.
Since relinquishing the CBA presidency in 2010, Jijiwa has dedicated himself to providing leadership in public service broadcasting globally as he is regularly invited to public service broadcasting forum worldwide as a lead speaker, authority and resource person. He has used broadcasting to confirm Nigeria’s eminence in all regions of the world: Asia and the Pacific, the Americas, Australia, Europe and here in Africa He is enriching broadcasting for Nigeria. He is mentoring a lot of leaders and managers in the Nigerian public service broadcasting firmament. He is contributing to to the growth and development of the Nigerian public information sector.
The Greatest beneficiary of course is the Voice of Nigeria which he has provided the leverage for global network and partnership, affording the staff of the corporation tremendous learning and development opportunities in countries like Germany, France, the Netherlands, the United States, Malaysia, Singapore, south Africa, Indonesia, Egypt, Angola etc. Name the country and you are likely to find one VON staff studying or working or participating in international conference, workshop or seminar on broadcasting there. Jijiwa facilitated these. This writer is a beneficiary in winning a Commonwealth Broadcasting Association Scholarship to pursue graduate studies in Public Policy and Administration at Brunei Darussalam’s premier university in Bandar Seri Begawawan.
From Jijiwa in VON in the past 22 years are so many lessons in leadership, service, comradeship, compassion and integrity. He readily gives credit to whom it is due, acknowledging every little effort of staff, colleagues and superior. Ask his predecessors in office, Mallam Yaya Abubakar and Aremo Taiwo Allimi. They are always full of superlatives in describing Jijiwa as a team player. Ayo Sulaiman, Ben Egbuna, kabir Muhammed Ahmed, Timothy Gyang, Sola Tijani, Okey Nwachukwu, Margaret Obanya, Frank Ilogu and others who worked with him on the VON Board of Management consider him a gift in leadership and Management of human resources.
Jijiwa’s uncommon leadership qualities and humility are to be traced to his humble background in rustic Fufore, via Yola Adamawa State, the grace he has enjoyed in his growing up years, the men of eminence he had served and the challenges imposed on him by his community which find him worthy of the title of Sardaunan Ribadu, a traditional title of prime ministerial status in Ribadu District of the Adamawa Emirate. But the most eminent is the national honor he was conferred with by President Goodluck Jonathan in 2010. He was honored with Member, Federal Republic (MFR). Successive Ministers of Information since 2005 found Jijiwa an asset in the information ministry under which VON falls as a parastatal. His colleagues regards him highly just as he respects all immensely.
As he bows out of VON, Jijiwa, established as a Gamji, would be leaving behind a worthy national heritage. Jijiwa continues in service of Nigeria as he returns to the to his primary constituency, Accounting. One unique feature of Sardaunan Ribadu is his limitlessly elastic patience, confounding belief in destiny and unusual spirit of sacrifice. With these, he just waits on God for direction on every step he makes. So, 22 years in the service of Voice of Nigeria, the authoritative choice, I can only wish Abubakar Bobboyi Jijiwa more of the blessings of the light of faith, wisdom, understanding, discernment, courage, fairness and justice. These are the essentials of success in public leadership. These are implied in the Nolan Principles of public life. Every leader or aspiring public office holder can also learn from Jijiwa.
28 January 2015
Speaking on behalf of the international satellite community, Michel de Rosen, CEO of Eutelsat, today warned African states of the consequences for the continent if C-band resources are reallocated to mobile operators.
Michel de Rosen was speaking to delegates from African countries gathered in Nigeria for a meeting organised by the African Telecommunication Union (ATU) to prepare for the World Radiocommunication Conference scheduled to take place in Geneva from 2 to 27 November 2015. During the meeting in Abuja, African states will define their position on access to the C-band that is currently allocated to satellite operators and claimed by mobile operators.
Michel de Rosen reminded delegates that the C-band is widely used to provide vital services, including air traffic control, government and enterprise communications, disaster relief, broadcasting and Internet access. The use of C-band by mobile operators would mean the total loss of these critical services, with no possible alternatives.
“Opening the C-band to mobile operators would not herald the expansion of its use for new services. It would mean the end of services, with no guarantee that new mobile services would actually be deployed using this band. It’s a lose-lose scenario and exactly the opposite of the intended goals,” he said.
“Terrestrial operators already have access to a very broad range of spectrum and should be using this first before seeking to acquire more, particularly if this process is carried out at the expense of critical applications,” he added.
27 January 2015
DW’s Crossroads Generation is being offered as in-app content on Mxit – a South African mobile social network with millions of monthly active users.
Deutsche Welle has added to its portfolio of partners in Africa with Mxit – one of the largest mobile social networks on the continent. DW and Mxit worked together to develop an app for Crossroads Generation, which makes the educational audio content available to users throughout Africa. Users with any Internet-enabled mobile phone can listen to the program for free after adding “crossroadsgen” as a contact in their Mxit account.
Crossroads Generation is an educational radio novella designed to help Africa’s youth deal with everyday challenges in a fun and easy way. Listeners learn about real-life issues like drug abuse, teenage pregnancy and domestic abuse.
“The new deal with Mxit will ensure that we reach our target audience in Africa even better,” says Petra Schneider, Director of Distribution at DW. “We can definitely imagine expanding the partnership in the near future to include online and audio content in several African languages, as well as video content in English.”
Ben Carl Havemann, Marketing and Communications Manager of Mxit, called Crossroads Generation app as a format featured by the platform “especially valuable for our core target group.”
With nearly 5 million users in South Africa alone, Mxit is particularly popular among young people and rivals heavyweights like Facebook. The majority of Mxit users are located in South Africa, and other key markets include India, Nigeria and Indonesia.
Mxit compresses digital content to make it accessible on all types of handsets and over all types of networks – something that is especially important in Africa, where network speeds have remained slow in many places. Mxit users can engage in private chats, group chats, play games or read news, and most of the content is free.
Crossroads Generation is broadcast on DW radio in Amharic, English, French, Hausa, Kiswahili and Portuguese and rebroadcast by 260 DW partner stations in Africa. It is being offered initially on Mxit in English.
