By BARTHOLOMEW MADUKWE
ABUJA—Former Director-General of Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, FRCN, Mr. Taiwo Alimi, has condemned the Oronsaye committee’s recommendation on the rationalization and restructuring of federal parastatals that Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, FRCN, Voice of Nigeria, VON,  and Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, be merged into one.

Alimi, in a statement, argued that such recommendation was equivalent to the Federal Government merging the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the Federal Ministry of Interior, noting that NTA, FRCN and VON each had a distinct role in broadcasting.

According to him, VON is the nation’s external broadcasting network and the Oronsaye committee has shown insufficient understanding of the broadcasting sector. He said: “It is not how much the Oronsanye Committee does not know about VON and broadcasting, as how wrong, the presidential committee is in what it thinks it knows about VON.”

Alimi, who is also the Chairman, Nigerian Elections Debate Group, 2011, queried the Oronsanye committee for not conducting any serious research before arriving at its merger recommendations of VON, NTA and FRCN, including the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC and the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC.

“In any society and in any democracy, citizens’ participation should be extensive and interactive, since the citizens are the true custodians of democracy” he said, adding that merging NTA, FRCN and VON is to kill development in Nigeria.

He advised the Federal Government to embark on critical measures on strengthening VON against the recommendation by the Oronsanye led presidential committee on restructuring and rationalization of Federal Government parastatals and agencies.