The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) will today add Igbo and Yoruba services, seven months after launching a fully digitalized service in Pidgin.
The launch of these services was made possible by the United Kingdom Government through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) which offered the BBC a new investment of 289 million pounds to launch 12 new language services.
Nigeria is a major beneficiary of this investment with three new language services – Pidgin earlier launched in August 21, 2017 and the Igbo and Yoruba services- going live on the BBC digital platforms today.
The BBC Hausa service, the pioneer of the corporation’s language service in Nigeria which is over 60 years old, has become a household name in the country attracting incredibly huge audience and the BBC hopes to leverage on the milestones recorded to extend its contents to cover two other major languages spoken in the country.
The Igbo service is mainly for audiences in eastern and south-eastern Nigeria as well as the large Igbo-speaking Diaspora while the Yoruba service targets south-west Nigeria, Benin and Togo as well as other parts of the Diaspora.
According to the BBC, these fully digital services will include exciting short format audio, video, graphics and illustrations.
Twice daily, the teams will produce an episode of BBC Minute – keeping people in touch with the world in 60 seconds.
Editorial Lead on the project, Peter Okwoche in a chat with Daily Trust said the editorial agenda will reflect not only balanced impartial news, but also a rich mix of trending topics, sports, entertainment, business, health, education and women.
According to him, the digital services commence with exclusive and explosive interviews with the Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka in Yoruba as well as wife of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Nnamdi Kalu, in Igbo.
There will be original content through our network of reporters on variety of stories and issues that matter to local people and resonate across the region, the BBC said.
Speaking further, Okwoche said, "One of the most exciting things for me is to tell our stories in our own language and I think there is something standard about that, something original about that and that’s what these two services are going to be doing.
"The Igbo service would be telling stories from their own region, the Igbo speaking area of Nigeria, to the rest of Nigeria and to the rest of the world likewise the Yoruba service as well".
The services, he added, would change the narrative about the regions with a particular focus on the youth population and women.
"BBC Igbo & Yoruba will provide a platform for debate on the main issues of interest to audiences and give voices to a wide spectrum of people. There will also be a strong focus on women", he said.
Head of West Africa, Oluwatoyosi Ogunseye also said, “Delivering content and engaging with the Igbo and Yoruba audiences in their mother tongues is authentic, exciting and refreshing.
"The BBC is passionate about original journalism that adds value and this is what we want to achieve with these services. These platforms will deliver independent, objective and original news to meet the needs of our audiences in Nigeria and West Africa.”
