The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has clarified that the controversial $500 million loan being sought from China is not for the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) alone.
Mohammed said at a press briefing in Abuja on Thursday in Abuja, that the loan would be used for three major projects.
He explained that the loan would be used to construct a headquarters complex and transmission network for Integrated Television Services (ITS), the Federal Government-owned signal distributor and a major component of the country’s Digital Switch Over (DSO)
Also the fund would be used to build an ultra-modern Media City in Ikorodu to have, Indoor/Outdoor shooting area, Animation Production Facility and Digital Media Training Centre, he added.
He said other facilities in the city would include World Class Cinema, Four-Star Hotel, an Amusement Park and Amphi-theatre.
The minister said the loan would also be used for acquisition of digital movie production equipment for rental as well as power system
He disclosed that the Media City Training Academy was only the second of its type in Africa and the first is in Egypt.
He said the facilities would be used to train Nigerian broadcasters and filmmakers in the production of high quality media content programmes and make Nigeria a hub for digital movie production in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The minister also disclosed that the loan would be used for digitisation of all NTA Stations at the Headquarters, 12 zonal stations, the 36 states and FCT as well as 78 community stations.
He decried “the hysteria created over it in a section of the media”, noting that “In an era of social media, the real news is usually sacrificed on the altar of sensationalism and disinformation”.
He continued, “That’s how I will describe the hysteria, in a section of the media, over the reportage of the 500 million dollars loan being sought from China”.
