Since April 11, the Nigerian media landscape has welcomed a new player. Based at NASRDA in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, NSTI-TV is a new television channel created by the Nigerian government to promote STI in the country.
Available terrestrially, via satellite and online, the channel broadcasts in several languages, including English, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, to ensure wide accessibility to the Nigerian public. It covers a wide range of topics related to science, technology and innovation, such as engineering, scientific heritage, science policy, health and medicine, natural sciences, environment and wildlife, children's curiosity, science and society, and agricultural innovations.
The channel will use multiple interactive formats to engage viewers, such as documentaries, interviews, demonstrations, game shows, science fiction and docu-dramas.
NSTI-TV aims to inform, educate and entertain viewers while publicizing scientific achievements and promoting the exchange of ideas, knowledge and skills for the benefit of the general public. It will enable the population to better appreciate the relevance of science, technology and innovation in nation building. The new TV channel comes at a time when Nigeria is experiencing a tech boom. Several tech hubs have sprouted in Nigeria’s economic capital Lagos, with many of them driving innovation, supporting collaboration among tech startups, and attracting investors.
The Tv will focus on Nigeria’s contribution to STI and showcase how our ancestors used science and technology in the use of drugs, and building houses,” said the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Adeleke Olorunnimbe Mamora, at the launch. The station will serve as a veritable platform to inform, educate and entertain as well as publicize scientific discoveries, inventions, and achievements of the various parastatal under the ministry and exchange of ideas, knowledge and skill for the benefit of the common man.”
The TV channel was deployed as part of implementation of the Presidential Executive Order No.5, namely, to assist in establishing STI as part of the everyday life of Nigerians, a move towards achieving the country’s national development goals across all sectors of the economy and to promote the vital role of Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) in National Economic Development (NED), particularly in the area of promoting Made in Nigeria Goods and Services (MNGS); which will ensure job creation for our teeming youth.
