By Jane Mann-Effiong
Providing more children friendly contents in the Nigerian media space has been identified as an important role of media experts like content creators, broadcasters, and other relevant stakeholders.
This formed the major highlights of a specialised Tuesday workshop in Lagos at the Nigerian Electronic Media Content Exhibition and Award (NEMCEA 2022) anchored on children programming and sponsored by the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission.
In his address, president of NEMCEA, Jibe Ologeh said the workshop was geared toward reducing the dependency on other countries for children programmes.
He added that such dependency neither support nor promote indigenous cultural and moral values that can help to ‘redirect the mindset of the average nigerian child to think nigerian’.
Regarding Children contents, the commision’s Director of Broadcast Monitoring, Franca Aiyetan urged media stations to adhere to all regulations and guidelines as contained in Section 4(2) of the NBC code.
She emphasized on the part of the code which states that at least 10% of weekly content should be dedicated to children programmes within children-belt.
Aiyetan added that content creators should strive to come up with compelling productions that will meet international standards, engage the Nigerian child and help them imbibe correct values.
Earlier, in his welcome address the Director General of the National Broadcasting Commission ( NBC) Mallam Balarabe Shehu Illelah submitted that children are the most vulnerable audience of the media and sued for more engaging local contents.
He pledged the commission’s commitment to adopt the recommendations from the workshop to promote the inclusion of children in the media space.
Stakeholders at the workshop tagged ” Content Inclusiveness in the Digital Era” harped on the need to maximise social media, synergy between local content creators and stations, review of policies on advertising, funding from cooperate organizations amongst others.
