BBC launches Igbo, Yoruba language services in Nigeria
The BBC this week launches its new Igbo and Yoruba services in Nigeria, as part
of an expansion in local languages aimed at more in-depth reporting of
countries around the world.
The digital-only services go live online and on social media
on Monday, joining a platform for Pidgin speakers that was launched last year
and has attracted widespread interest. All three are among 12 new language
services set up across the world with the help of £291 million ($408 million,
327 million euros) British government funding.
Peter Okwoche, in charge of editorial for the launch,
described Yoruba and Igbo as “the two final cogs in the wheel for the new
services in West Africa” and said they were much needed. “What we feel is that
original journalism in a local language travels even further than in English,”
he told AFP in an interview.
“We’re big on the African narrative, the Nigerian narrative.
It’s time for people to try to tell their own stories.”
– Ethnic tension –
Young Nigerians increasingly live life online, with social
media hugely popular in the country, which has about 150 million mobile phone
subscriptions among its population of nearly 190 million.
Nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of the population is aged
under 24, giving it one of the youngest demographics in the world. Okwoche said
they were the corporation’s target audience, along with the business-savvy men
and women for which the Igbo and Yoruba communities are noted both at home and
abroad.
“All we ever get to hear from Nigeria these days is Boko
Haram in the northeast. As serious as that story is, it’s happening in one particular
part of the country,” he said. “But there’s so much more happening. Here in
Lagos, for instance, there’s technology stories, business and young
entrepreneurs, the hustle of the street… “We never get to see that.
” The launch comes at a time of renewed tensions between
Nigeria’s three main regions, particularly the Igbo-speaking southeast and the
Hausa-speaking north. In the southeast, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)
group has revived separatist sentiment, half a century after a previous declaration
of independence sparked a brutal civil war. The populist rhetoric of IPOB’s
leader, former London estate agent Nnamdi Kanu, has led to clashes between his
supporters and the military, and propaganda on both sides.
Its push for a separate republic of Biafra, using its own
media, including Kanu’s Radio Biafra, has also sparked similar calls from
hardline Yoruba nationalists in the southwest. Kanu is currently on trial for
treason in the capital, Abuja, but has not been seen since September last year.
BBC Igbo will on Monday run an interview with his wife.
– ‘About time’ –
A heady mix of wildfire rumours and misinformation on social
media, plus Nigerians’ strong sense of ethnic identity, makes Africa’s most
populous nation a difficult place to report. Foreign media often have
historical baggage to deal with, not least those from Britain, the former
colonial power until 1960. In the southeast, it is still not forgotten that
London backed Nigeria’s federal forces against the fledgling Biafra in the
civil war.
Okwoche acknowledged the potential pitfalls of such a strong
sense of regional identity. But he said his young team had undergone months of
“rigorous BBC training, trying to almost change their mindset”, to tell the
story without personal emotions. “We’re trying to balance our stories… We just
have to keep on telling them (that) once your story is embellished, people know
and you begin to lose credibility,” he added.
The BBC has had an Hausa-language service broadcasting to
northern Nigeria for 60 years, which has become one of the most successful in
the corporation. Okwoche said it was “about time” the country’s other regions
were catered for, using local, rather than foreign staff. “There’s much to
applaud in that.”
Ayo Adebanjo, chieftain of Afenifere, has insisted that former president,
Olusegun Obasanjo was anti-Yoruba.