BBC Pidgin service goes live today

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) will today launch its Pidgin service, one of the new languages the organization is introducing in the African continent.

The fully digitalized service can be accessed through various social media platforms and on the BBC website.

To position the global media outfit to cover more regions and continents of the world, the United Kingdom through the Foreign and Commonwealth Officer (CFO) offered the BBC a new investment worth over 280 million pounds.

Nigeria is said to be a major beneficiary of the investment with new language services to be introduced including Pidgin English, Yoruba and Igbo which would complement the existing Hausa and English services offered by the BBC.

Speaking with Daily Trust on the new service, BBC’s Nigeria Editorial Lead, Bilkisu Labaran said, “The new service targets the young African populace to tell their stories in the language they understand.

“The other thing also is the potential of the pidgin language which is a language that brings people together; a language of unity; a language that cuts across divides and barriers that unfortunately sometime we have in African communities.

“The other thing is, our strategy is that we are going to be fully digital, we will have a website as well as social media platforms, primarily Facebook and Instagram. Those platforms are specially selected because young people have access to the platforms, Facebook is really popular in this market so is Instagram but we have a deliberate strategy to also reach young women and hence the Instagram strategy”.

She said study has shown that over 75 million Nigerians alone speak pidgin in addition to other neighbouring countries like Ghana, Cameroon, Gambia, Liberia where the language is spoken.