Farounbi Advises Nigerians Against Imbibing Foreign Culture

By Ogundele Olanrewaju

Former Nigerian Ambassador to Philippines, Ambassador Yemi Farounbi has called on Nigeria government and stakeholders in the media sector to regulate the influx of foreign culture through the convergence of radio, television and newspaper into one by the social media.

Ambassador Farounbi made the call at the ongoing Oyo State media conference 2021 organized by the CEO of a private satellite television station, (JAGABAN TELEVISION) Samuel Adenitan.

Ambassador Farounbi said that the foreign contents are disvalueing the culture as well as making the people accept culture that are antithetic to the essential values of Nigeria and African values.

The veteran Broadcaster who also called for swift switch from analog to digital broadcasting for the opportunities and potential embedded in, adding that the terms of knowledge usage, accumulation and utilization of it should be preach to the people as well as the retraining the personnel.

He added that “the critical there is for the broadcaster to know that we are part of the fourth revolution around the world and at our industries is pivotal of a digital economy, we’ve recognized we are already in a convergence of broadcast, radio, tv, online, newspaper and social media.
What used to be the partition are broken-down because of the digital.

He further maintained that “We need to preach the knowledge to the crowd, we need to train ourselves, when you’re a journalist, you must see yourself as a radio, tv, social media person because you may have to do an online, radio man should know that he have to do a social media, YouTube etc; we are having it convergence and that requires a lot of effort in terms of knowledge usage, accumulation and utilization; all of this is given more of pluralities services to the viewers, so that they can have more option, more satisfaction from different news, education and more entertainment.

“We must recognized the danger that disposed to our society by the huge influx of foreign culture that radio, television, social media, they disvalue our culture, make our people accept culture that are antithetic to the essential values of Nigeria and African values.

“For the professional to protect our culture requires a lot of funding, they have to make good program that the viewers, listeners at home will key up into and that takes a lot of money.
“You can not just block this foreign values that are well furnished and bring authentic African culture in line and expect people to take it, so we need to encourage the advertiser, sponsor to put more money into the media so that we can give them better program that will reflect or authentic culture that will move us forward, that will not make us become slave to western cultures.

“It will creat more opportunities because a station will be running more channels instead of one, so it’ll require more staff, content providers, it’s look like reduction but still there’s an expansion because it’ll require more content, Newscaster, Reporter.
It takes more people, it requires more creative, innovative professional; digital expand opportunity and potential.