Digital switch over to create 1million job in Nigeria – Lai Mohammed

By Oluchi Ihediuche

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has described the digital switch over in broadcating as a massive job creator and a huge revenue generator, capable of creating over 1 million jobs over the next three years.

Lai Mohammed who made this known at the inauguration of a Ministerial Task Force on the Digital switch over Rollout, in Abuja on Tuesday said his decision to inaugurate the committee was as a result of the immense benefits of the DSO.

According to him, their effort was to maximize opportunities available in the process, while changes in the Broadcast Code is to protect local jobs and production.

“Gentlemen, my decision to set up the Ministerial Task Force to drive the DSO process is hinged on the fact that a successful Digital Switch Over is a massive job creator and a huge revenue generator, This process is capable of creating over 1 million jobs over the next three years. These are not phantom jobs. They are real jobs, as I will demonstrate shortly. a) Manufacturing alone can create between 40 and 50 thousand jobs.

” we have started the process of introducing world class Audience Measurement and Media Monitoring to deliver on our potential 1-billion-dollar TV and Online Advertising revenue market and now we will ensure that the DSO ecosystem.

He disclose that With the payment approval by the federal government, and with 31 states to cover, there have no excuses for not rapidly rolling out the DSO across the states in the country,

“As you may be aware, gentlemen, the Federal Executive Council has recently approved the outstanding payments to key stakeholders in the DSO, thus removing what has constituted a roadblock to the entire process in the past three years.

Mr Mohammed stated that there have studied the trend as reducing government involvement in the DSO ecosystem to allow the private sector take the lead, on purely commercial terms.

“With the devastating effects of Covid-19 and the fall in government revenues, the Federal Government can no longer afford to subsidize the program, especially the Set-Top-Boxes and the Signal carriage, which ordinarily can and should be highly-competitive commercial ventures. And in order to begin the commercialization of the DSO, we need to create a structure and an ecosystem that is self-sufficient, self-reliant and able to generate revenue which will drive strategic growth in key areas. The details of that structure are for the Task Force to explore.

The Ministerial Task Force, is saddled with the responsibility of driving the Federal Government’s Digital Switch Over project,

The DSO is launched in Osun State, Jos, Plateau State, Abuja, Ilorin, Kwara State, Kaduna, Enugu, and Osogbo.

Oluchi Ihediuche