Imagine a man with ears, but cannot hear. Imagine a man with eyes but cannot see. Imagine a man with mouth, but cannot speak. This person is blind, deaf and dumb.
But when a man has no eyes, ear and mouth, what do we call the person? I don’t know. But it were better he was not born. That person is as good as dead!
This could be the same story with a people without means of communication. In this era of technological advancement, certain people are operating without a newspaper, television and a radio? Without a means of communication, Kogi East is sure inadequate, incomplete, handicapped and in fact dead. A person without an earpiece or mouthpiece is as good as dead.
Igalaland is dead without a means of communication. Nobody seems to care about it. It is a tragedy when you are sick, and you do not know that you are sick. We have good ideas about how we can forge unity and integration, but we do not know how to go about it.
Those of us that use handset know that when it is lost or breaks down, we often feel that we are out of this world. So it is with Igala land, we are out of this world. Do we have people that can establish a newspaper, television or radio? Yes. What is the problem? Let’s redirect our priority.
So many things are getting wrong irredeemably in Igala land. There seems not to be answer, even in the near future. We seem to have been cowed into submission. Are we down and out? By my calculation, Igala land has been hit by three ailments – Disunity, lack of political leadership and means of communication for sensitisation, mobilisation and integration.
I feel the third point is most IMPORTANT AND URGENT. When we have a means of communication, we can disseminate information for unity, integration and development. Our people are not getting the right information. They are exposed to only one side of the story. Ignorance of who we are, what we want and how to go about it, has been the bane of our land. We have problems, but we don’t know how to solve them.
Socio-political integration is what Igala land needs now; more than before. But we need to code and disseminate our messages in the language we understand. We should not do it in half measure. Let us choose a means to tell our story. We should not be at other people’s mercy. We should take our destiny in our own hands. We look like a people that do not know what they want.
We cannot talk about unity and social integration, when we have no means of communicating the message. There are a thousand and one Whapsapp platforms preaching unity, integration, development, but it will not work, if we continue to shy away from reality. How many of our fathers, mothers and brothers and sisters at home are on Whatsapp?
In this write-up, I want to say that something is fundamentally wrong with Igala people. We don’t know what we are looking for. So we don’t know how to get it. There are three basic means of communicating with mass of people, at the same time – Newspaper, Television and radio. Out of these three, radio has the greatest appeal and reach. It is the most effective way of dissemination information. All you need is a transistor radio, battery or electricity. That is why many communities are embracing community radio, to solve their problems.
We are being left behind. Getting a radio station is OVERDUE, in Igala land. Do we have people rich enough to establish one? Yes. What do we lack? We lack requisite education! We are thinking of unity, development and how to capture power, but we are not planning well how to achieve them!
The Igala story is a very sad one. When we were in Benue State, we had AM booster station at Abadigba, near Egume. Later we got an FM booster station at Ochaja. That was before the creation of Kogi State. That time, none of our neighbours in Kogi State had any radio station. We are pioneers in radio broadcasting. But we have not made any improvement since then.
Until recently, we had liberty and control over the Kogi State FM booster station, at Ochaja. But the story is not the same again. The story changed five years ago when we lost power. The need to have our own has dawned on us. And it is VERY URGENT!
Politicians should be more concerned about this. Under the aegis of Ugane Olopu Igala (Kogi East Leadership and Vision – KELAV), I had the privilege of addressing Kogi East Forum (KEF) in Abuja on two occasions, recently, about the need to establish a radio station, as a vehicle to carry their aspirations for Igala land. I could see the mood of the political eggheads and of the elder statesmen that were gathered on the two occasions. I saw anger. I saw apprehension. I saw frustration. I saw resignation. Above all I saw the will to surmount the daunting issues confronting Igala land.
From my privileged position, as a professional journalist, I told them that all their plans would continue to be in the pipeline, if we do not have a means of mobilising the people – preferably a radio station.
Our people in Ankpa area are at the mercy of Joy FM in Otukpo. When they switch into Idoma language, they switch off their radio. Those in Idah area are at the mercy of FM stations in Enugu and Anambra states. When they switch to Igbo language, those that do not understand naturally would switch off their radios. It is shame.
Every ethnic group around us has a community radio station. We do not have any. Can we redirect our priority from building hotels and filling stations to this social investment? Can we change this sad narrative? Can we do something differently? Yes, we can.
My heart bleeds any time I see our politicians spend millions to collect nomination forms for governorship elections, even when they know that they are not going to win. And they don’t care to continue to pay over N20 million every election year, for this purpose. They are immune to waste! It does not matter to them. N20 million can provide a meaningful investment that people can benefit from!
If 20 governorship aspirants pay N20 million to collect nomination forms, the total is N400 million. We are busy enriching political parties, every election year. As we speak now, some of our brothers are already preparing for 2023 elections. Without doing the right things first, I can bet you, it is going to be a wild goose chase! Another wasteful effort.
By Abel Ada-Musa
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