How Abuja Human Rights Radio will operate

Even in the harsh harmattan cold on Friday, February 17, 2017, 33 people had arrived by 6.49 am to wait for selection in the Brekete Family programme, the radio talk-show they hoped would feature their complaints for possible remedies. These men and women, including the young and the old, wished to air perceived maltreatment from different quarters, including wrongful dismissal from office or school, pension matters or other unpaid entitlements, brutalisation, mostly in the hands of armed security operatives, misdiagnosis or wrong treatment in hospitals, maltreatment by house owners, land and similar disputes, and a plethora of other human right violations.

Only a few of the waiting complainants would be called into the studio for the live programme and only some of those called in would have their complaints treated before the one hour airing slot runs out. 

Complainants keep trying their luck until they get the airtime they seek.

Such is the faith of the thousands of people who usually troop to Brekete Family for answers to their problems. Various problems and how they are treated have been of much interest to the listening public who tune to Love FM, 104.5, Abuja, from Monday to Friday, between 7:30 and 8:30 on a weekly basis when the programme has been aired for the past eight years.

The Mpape-based Crowther Radio (Love FM) will soon have to let go of this programme, which has been its flagship these past years. The programme will now be aired in a new establishment known as the Human Rights Radio & Television (HRR&TV), located in Kaura District, beside Games Village, Abuja.

Owned by the initiator and lead presenter of the Brekete Family, Ahmed Isa, the Human Rights 101.1 radio complex was commissioned last Monday, February13, by the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed. Espousing his own perspective of human rights violation and how he would expect the new station to address it, he said, “Nobody has the interest of the human rights of citizens better than the government. Fighting corruption is protecting the rights of the citizens. There can be no better assault on human rights than the mindless corruption and looting. Monies meant for education, water, health care, security and so on were all stolen by a few individuals. That in itself is a blow on the right of humans. The corrupt elements are the people who have assaulted our collective human rights. Those are the people who have humiliated this country and this is why this government’s anti-corruption war must be supported by all and sundry.”

Mohammed said his ministry would encourage the radio station to project government’s whistle-blower initiate, which he said had yielded $160 million and N8 billion within two months of its declaration.

Also speaking during the event, the chief executive officer of the Human Rights Radio, Ahmed Isa, said it was a dream come true, adding that he would use the platform to speak for the weak and voiceless in the society. “We are going to do more of what we are known for. Mediation, justice seeking and dispute resolution are what we know how to do best, and we promise to take it to the next level for the sake of the common man,’’ he said.

In an interview with Daily Trust on Sunday, Isa, who is popularly known as Ordinary President by the Brekete Family, which comprises members of staff and volunteers who help in running the programme, as well as numerous complainants, said the new station would make a difference. “At Love FM, it has always been one hour of Brekete Family, but here, it’s going to be two hours,” he said.

He said the radio station would run human right-related programmes 24 hours on a daily basis. According to him, “We are making history as the first and only radio station in the world wholly dedicated to promoting and protecting human rights and championing the cause of the oppressed.”

Asked how the station would be sustained with strictly human right issues, 

Isa answered, “Can you ever exhaust the challenges of human rights? Can you finish addressing the wrongs humanity continues to inflict on many of its own?  Human right issues are inexhaustible. There will always be contentions. People and organisations with varying forms of influence would often exert such influence unfairly and victims will always come for opportunities to speak. Oppression will remain, and people seeking their way out will consequently remain. You can never run out of content on human right-related issues.”

The Human Rights Radio 101.1 is yet to commence broadcasting; hence the Brekete Family programme is still aired at the Love FM studio.

He further said that when the new station begins operation, the scope of human rights broadcasting would increase. “We will have specific programmes for the rights of women and girls. We even have a programme for the rights of animals. We will have coverage for environmental rights,” he disclosed. He said their programmes would be a mixture of live discussions with guests, phone-in programmes in which complainants would present their cases and defendants called to state their own side of the cases. At the end, resolution would be worked out.

Ordinary President, however, said that Christian and Islamic programmes would be aired on Sundays and Fridays while culture-related matters would take place other days. There will also be music, news bulletins and other radio programmes.

It was gathered that the establishment of the Human Rights 101.1 radio complex, which boasts of ultra-modern studios and facilities, was largely made possible through the efforts of international donors such as the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), Amnesty International and the MacArthur Foundation.

In appreciation to the MacArthur Foundation, the first studio at the entrance of the complex is named after it. 

 “We have enjoyed support from OSIWA and the MacArthur Foundation. That’s why we named the studio by the entrance, MacArthur Foundation Studio. The United Nations is also planning to support us,” Isa said. 

He, however, said he was careful in accepting support from organisations, explaining, “I did not start out to provide a voice for the oppressed because I wanted to make money. I do what I do out of passion, and I told myself from the beginning that I was not going to make big money from what I do. A good thing will always attract goodwill. If money comes along I won’t say no to it, but I am not going to accept your money if you attempt to change my principle and move me away from my passion. I am with the voiceless to give them a voice. I won’t accept money that will take that capacity from me. Although 90 per cent of what we do is unpaid for, as we don’t take anything from complainants, the remaining 10 per cent from sponsorship or advertisements is enough for me to pay salaries and tax and run the station. We are prudent with resources.”