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| Fidelis Duker CEO of FAD 93.1FM FM & FAD 360Tv |
19 August 2019
1st September this year, FAD 93.1FM and FAD 360Tv, products of FAD Productions will be two years old and counting. As part of its anniversary celebration the CEO of FAD FM, Fidelis Duker has given insight into how the media organisation berthed NEGROIDHAVEN can say. He said this while addressing a cross section of bloggers and journalists with affiliation with news websites in Calabar the state capital city.
According to Duker, after his involvement with Donald Duke in some film productions that characterised the launch of Tinapa Leisure and Business Resorts in 2007, he discovered that there was no private radio and television station in the state and decided on filling the gap. He informed that he immediately applied for a licence from the NBC in 14 April 2007 for the licence, and waited until 25th of April 2015.
His words in part ‘Let me even tell you how FAD FM came into being, because it leads to your question. In 2007 we were invited by the former governor of Cross River State, that is, Donald Duke. I never knew him and like he said value. Most times when you do things and you don’t place money as the focal point, money will always come. I have always told people. It’s when you place money… You might not get money and that is my guiding principle.
‘I never knew Donald Duke even though I am from this state, even though he grew up in Lagos, it was on the same vicinity where we all grew up, I never knew him for one day. I was in my office one evening when my phone rang. And then a woman called and said her name is Onari Duke the First Lady. I said yes. She said I am the First Lady of Cross River State, are you Mr Duker and I said yes, what is it? I got your number from Joke Sylva. Can I see you? I said where? She said my house. I said at where? She said Ikoyi somewhere in Lagos.
‘That’s how I went there. And she said come we need your assistance, we have a problem now, we are launching Tinapa in a month’s time and we are hooked. We’ve commissioned somebody to help us run the documentary for the festival, do some other things for them at the Tinapa opening in Calabar. And then we needed your support. We also heard that you run one of the longest film festivals in Nigeria in Abuja. We would like to do a film festival attached to Tinapa…
‘It’s OK, let me go and see the place. The following day they flew me to Calabar and that is how I got to Calabar for the first time. I met the husband. He said I must work with them on that project. That was how we came, covered the entire documentary of Tinapa, the entire documentary in Cross River State. Did the film festival that year. And that was when I came and found out that there was no private radio or TV, the only one we had then was CRBC. I went there, saw the facility, saw the environment, I was not too impressed… I felt this was a joke, so I now applied for the licence, it took us 8 years of waiting. I applied immediately on April 14 2007 for the licence, it didn’t come out until 2015, 25th of April.’
Duker further observed that FAD FM is a talk radio station not a music radio station. He promised to be objective and balanced in their reportage shunning libel: ‘FAD FM was created for the people, it is not for any politician… The station was not set up for government patronage. That is why I make bold to say in two years no government, or no politician can walk up to say I have been sponsoring or funding this place. No. We’ve ran this place independently and we will continue to run it independently of politicians and pecuniary gains… FAD FM is owned by the people, FAD FM is the people’s radio.’
