THE story, last week, that Arise News Channel is live in 54 countries in Africa, including South Africa and nine other Southern African countries on the platform of Multichoice, sent a ball of excitement down my system and, at once, elicited the kind of euphoria and patriotic fervency I feel when a Nigerian is doing something quite outstanding.
Nigerians fly high when they want to fly, putting behind them the worries of a nation that has refused to hit full gear. With the announcement, Prince Nduka Obaigbena, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Thisday Media Group and Arise News, has taken competition to some level beyond immediate imagination. Though a businessman, I have always looked at him as a stuntman in a movie who can risk everything to get desired results.
But one man’s vision persevered and prevailed, challenging the rest of the world to rise beyond the mundane and the daily fixations of life. So, when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded a few minutes after launch on January 28, 1986, CNN was there to bring it to American homes and the global community. April 15,1989, CNN was at the Tiananmen Square in China to report the protest and massacre of young students.
Does Prince Obaigbena have the capacity, creativity and indeed the chutzpah to confront the uncertainties of international TV programming and can he really replicate the epoch breaking achievements of CNN in our part of the world?