Paddy Roberts | January 12, 2015
Alu Azege studied theatre and communication arts at the University of Jos in Nigeria. After graduating in 2003, she started working as a supporting producer in the studios of Kapital FM in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city. Kapital FM serves both the urban and rural communities around the city, and has a potential audience of about two million.
Young Nigerians are required to participate for one year in the National Youth Service Corps program. As part of her mandatory service, Mrs. Azege was assigned to the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, which was running a British Council project called Connecting futures. The project was designed to encourage educational development and mutual respect among young people between the ages of 18 and 30. Mrs. Azege developed a youth program entitled Generation Next. The magazine-style program featured music, interviews and discussions of social issues.
Following the success of Generation Next, the station’s general manager asked Mrs. Azege to develop a farming program. Greenland is a magazine-format program that tries to bridge the gap between farmers and policy-makers. The show features interviews, discussions and vox pops.
As the program’s producer, Mrs. Azege is responsible for ensuring that important topics are properly researched. She also oversees script development and writing, recording, editing and post-production. She interviews farmers and government policy-makers to generate content for the program. Mrs. Azege says, “Greenland offers farmers a voice. [Kapital FM] is a government-owned station, so farmers are always happy that their views will be heard and subsequently addressed.”
Mrs. Azege says that Kapital FM helps farmers to be heard, which makes it stand out in the community. In October 2014, the station organized a special outdoor event to celebrate World Food Day, and offered training in different farming practices. Mrs. Azege says: “It was a first of its kind, so the turnout was not massive. But we had a good crowd of teenagers who had a cooking competition, there were trainings, and farmers displayed and sold their products to the public.”
What does Greenland do that makes it so popular with its audience? Mrs. Azege says: “I work with a team of enthusiastic farm producers: Bukky Towuruh, DAS, Rali and Usman. A farming program on radio was thought to be boring, but I have made it as interactive and interesting as possible, so now even people who aren’t farmers have picked up interest in farming.”
Mrs. Azege can be contacted via email at azegealu@gmail.com, and you can follow her on Twitter via @realalu.
Kapital FM’s website is www.radionigeriaonline.net, and its Twitter address is: @kapitalfm92dot9
You can listen live on 92.9 FM!