Ahmed Abdulkadir
Excerpt from my Memoir
When I assumed the role of General Manager (GM) at Katsina State Television (KTTV), I recognized the urgent need to confront the deep-rooted issues plaguing the organization if I wanted to effectively address the prevailing corruption.
In my mind, I categorized the problems in the following manner: ensuring the proper collection and remittance of generated revenue, disciplining unruly producers, reporters/editors, accounts staff, and commercial officers. I approached each problem simultaneously, not shying away from the challenges they presented.
There were commercial officers secretly collecting fees on behalf of the station and diverting the funds for personal gain. In fact, a particular individual had positioned himself strategically between the station and the businessmen/philanthropists who sponsored programs. He would accept money from them, supposedly for sponsorship, and pocket it, promising to pay it later. However, the promised payments never materialized.
To tackle this, I made it known that I intended to meet with all the sponsors to discuss their outstanding debts. Once the individual caught wind of this, he began depositing the money into the station's account.
Regarding the producers, I discovered they were creating programs without providing a synopsis. Each person was producing programs as they pleased, leading to an unstructured and haphazard approach.
Consequently, for every program, they would go out and interview local government chairmen and other prominent figures, charging fees regardless of whether it was a commercial program or not. To address this issue, I organized a program planning conference and emphasized that no program would be aired without a synopsis, and no two programs should be alike.
Some reporters and news editors were also slipping in commercial news stories without paying the necessary fees. I consistently caught these attempts as I diligently reviewed the bulletin before the news was broadcasted.
Even the Transmission Controllers were not exempt, as they occasionally accepted money and aired unscheduled commercials after my departure from the station at night. To counter this, I insisted that we record all our transmissions, as outlined in the Nigeria Broadcasting Code. By reviewing these recordings, I could identify any unscheduled commercials and ensure that the responsible Transmission Controller would be held accountable.
There was also a system in place to provide staff with a stipend to purchase prescribed medication when they fell ill. One of the accounts staff members oversaw an imprest and disbursed funds to eligible staff members upon proper completion of the necessary forms. However, I discovered that this individual would manipulate the form after it was filled out, adding extra money that he would then keep for himself. For example, if ₦500.00 was approved, he would fraudulently alter it to ₦1,500.00 by adding a "1" in front of the "5". Unbeknownst to him, I meticulously documented every approved amount in my own personal notebook. When I confronted him with this evidence, in the presence of his department head he started shaking like a leaf and begged for mercy. He never did it again.
All this assisted in raising the revenue base of the station such that I was commended by the State House of Assembly when we went for budget defence. In one year, I generated a revenue of more than twelve million naira as against the three million naira that used to be generated...
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