Cleric Warns FG On Allocation Of Airwaves

President of Umuahia-based Vision Africa Radio and Methodist clergy, Bishop Sunday Onuoha, has advised the Federal government to carry out proper screening of applicants for broadcast licenses to guard against putting the fate of the country in the hands of individuals or groups who would use such licenses to cause anarchy in the country.

According to the former Special Assistant to President Olusegun Obasanjo on Privatisation, “Government must be careful as we give license for community broadcasting. We must be careful not to give licenses to fanatical groups. We must be careful not to expose our airwaves to people who don’t love this country.,” he cautioned, adding that “anything that will bring anarchy and confusion in this country, we must stand against it.”

Onuoha, while speaking to newsmen at the Vision Africa Broadcast House, said radio and television stations should be used to build the nation through moral education and information that would build families, which he said was the primary focus of Vision Africa which started broadcasting on December 14, 2004.

Said the  Methodist Bishop for Evangelism: “We (Vision Africa) are here to give hope to the hopeless, we are here to provide comfort to those who ordinarily would not have had some comfort; we are here to ensure that when people are lying down in their hospital bed or in their homes, that they will hear that they are loved by God and that somebody cares for them. That is what this radio station is meant to achieve.”

“Our goal is to provide entertainment, education and health information to our people, our goal and hope is to build families and restore confidence in people” he added.

He argued that the station has not limited itself to religious  stressing that a lot of things were involved in educating people through radio. “There are people you educate on moral issues and if there are scriptural basis for educating them on moral issues, then you give reference to it,” he said.