By Our Editor
The Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria ,FRCN, Media Salary Scale,MSS, and selective salary increment under the searchlight.
The Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria,FRCN, popularly tagged ‘Radio Nigeria’ is Nigeria owned and publicly funded radio broadcasting organization.
It was founded in 1933 by the British colonial government and branded Radio Diffusion Service ,RDS, with the mandate to allow the public hear and enjoy British Broadcasting Corporation,BBC, foreign radio service broadcast.
In 1950, RDS was rebranded Nigerian Broadcasting services and it was restructured into Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation ,NBC, in April 1st, 1957 by an act of parliament as public service.
Initially, NBS was only in Lagos, Kaduna, Enugu, Ibadan, kano as recommended by the the Nigeria Broadcasting Survey commissioned by the then colonial government and undertaken by Messrs Byron and Turner. It was later extended to other parts of the country such as Zaria, sokoto, Ilorin, Onitsha, port Harcourt, Abeokuta, ijebu ode to mention a few. Mr. T.W. Chalmers, a Briton and Controller of the BBC Light Entertainment Programme was the first Director-General of the NBS.
The NBC and the Broadcasting Corporation of Northern Nigeria ,BCNN, were merged into the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria,FRCN, in 1978. The Reverend Victor Badejo was the first indigenous Director-General of Radio Nigeria.
Also, the corporation has a training school in Ikeja, Lagos State known as Nigeria Broadcasting Academy ,NBA Lagos,
Yet, training of staffers is luxury in the Corporation except for the very senior staff.
There are staffs of 5, 7, 10 years in the corporation that has never being on any training since they joined the corporation not even to the corporation training school).
It is difficult to compare the corporation in terms of equipment, spare part, training, staff welfare and so on with radio stations such as BBC.
Many indigenous states and private stations as well are better off.
However today, the focus is going to be on staff welfare and remuneration.
There are senior officers for that matter whose lifestyle is nothing to write home about. It is quite painful that such upright and intelligent senior officers with over 25 years working experience is still wallowing in so much poverty.
They are always indebted and repaying loans.
The okada riders, bricklayers and others living around him are even better off. No wonder, Nigerian youth of today are no longer passionate about education.
It is a well known fact that the Nigeria Civil Service is about the most poorly paid globally with little or no welfare and training package for the staffers except for a few parastatals, agencies and ministries.
The condition is even worse in FRCN who always provide platforms for other to be heard and project the poor welfare packages yet, they are the worst victims and one of the worst paid ministry in Nigeria.
A graduate that joined the corporation on level 8 and has risen to level 12 after spending about 10 years in the corporation if the promotion is regular and is now probably with wife and kids will only experience an increment that is nothing to write home about considering the economic realities.
These are great men and women who have sacrificed the larger part of their lives in spite of the poor condition of service to ensure the corporation stay afloat and remain a force to reckon with.
Our case can be likened to that of a hairdresser that cannot plait or weave her own hair!
We kindly appeal to President Bola Tinubu,the Commander in Chief of the federal republic of Nigeria, Ministry of Labour, the acting honourable minister of labour and Productivity, Head Of the Civil Service of the Federation, President Nigeria Labour Congress, the honourable minister of information and all concerned stakeholders to help my so that media workers like fRCN, NTA and others are given priority.
Most frcn staff are wallowing in debt and poverty except for the few that are from privileged background. Hardly can you see a staff of frcn that can stand shoulder high before their counterparts in other parastatals like corporate affairs commission, industrial training fund ,ITF, federal Inland Revenue, Nigeria civil defence, Central Bank of Nigeria ,CBN, EFCC to mention a few.
A radio station belonging to the federal government should be a model and a source of pride both locally and abroad.
The staffers are doing their best to uplift the nation and unite the Nigerian public but the government is doing is not doing enough in uplifting the morale and welfare packages of the staffers.
Here’s is a call on President Tinubu and all stakeholders to beam their search light to ensure the welfare of members of staffs are given utmost priority.
The media salary scale would go a long way to address issues bothering on welfarism of members.
This has to change now.
Thank God we are in the era of change
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