The Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Malam Ali M. Ali, says the agency will commence broadcast in local languages before the end of 2025.
Ali made this known on Wednesday in Abuja at a public hearing organised by the House of Representatives Special Committee on Restructuring Federal Government Agencies.
NAN reports that the hearing was on the need to scrap outdated agencies and ensuring merger of government agencies with similar mandates.
Ali said with the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI), NAN was set to inaugurate portals to broadcast in the three major languages of Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo – before the end of 2025.
According to the managing director, Immersive Journalism (IJ) has come into the media space and it is taking over jobs, while many people are not aware.
NAN reports that IJ is a news reporting style that uses technologies like Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) to create a first-person experience for the audience.
The goal is to help the audience to understand and empathise with a story by placing them within the device.
Ali said that the commencement of broadcast in local languages was part of ongoing reforms in the agency to bring it up-to-date and ahead of the current trends.
According to him, NAN is not afraid of competition, given its large workforce, partnership and professionalism.
“We have already started in Hausa; Hausa is the largest spoken language in West Africa; we have 88 million speakers in Nigeria, according to National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
“Hausa is about the only non-ethnic language; people who are not necessarily Hausa speak and understand the language.
“Early next year, we are hoping to launch the Yoruba portal and by the middle of the year, we will have the Igbo portal; it is work in progress.
“We are asking our reporters to study other foreign languages like Arabic and French because we have to reposition the agency,” he said.
On revenue generation, the managing director said that NAN generated N215 million in 2024, stressing that NAN was already going into digital marketing to add to the revenue being generated from subscription.
Aside the contents to sell on social media like Facebook, Tiktok and X, he said, NAN was also consolidating its revenue generation like other media organisations.
The committee commended the agency for the professionalism and high standards in news reporting.
Rep. Ademorin Kuye (APC-Lagos) said that in spite of current challenges, NAN had remained impressive in its news reporting.
Kuye said NAN had been patriotic and optimistic in its news gathering and dissemination.
The committee ruled that the management should furnish the committee with areas of NAN Establishment Act that required amendment to enable the agency to perform optimally.
