THE ROLE OF INDEPENDENT TELEVISION BENIN IN POLITICAL MOBILIZATION OF RURAL AREAS IN NIGERIA

The Nigerian electorate in recent years has been intensely individualistic groups. Hence political parties usually confront pro-found cultural differences given the cultural structure of the Nigerian electorate.

Independent Television Benin is an electronic media with visual and audio sounds. It is an effective spontaneous messages carrier of our time. On 27th of March 1997 when Independent

Television started transmission of programmers‟ on channel 22 with its slogan certainly the Best, the station radically changed the horizon of broadcasting in it coverage area. Independent television came with a new millennium. The zeal of the founding father Sir Chief (Dr) Gabriel Osawaru Igbinedion the Esama of Benin kingdom, who after a careful study of the broadcast media yearned for an enhancement of the choice available to viewers to a level comparable to what is obtained in developed countries. Chief Igbinedion‟s dream culminated in the approval and subsequent presentation of a license by the formal Head of state General Ibrahim Babagida on 36th June 1993, at the Ladi Kwali hall of Sheraton Hotel and Tower Abuja. It goes down in history that Independent Television was the first private owned broadcasting station in Nigeria to receive a private license No.001 on that memorable day.

Having obtained the Franchise, Sir Chief (Dr).Gabriel Osawaru Igbinedion, the Esama of Benin Kingdom went straight to work by rendering standard skeletal services under the umbrella of Independent Television Network plans were known for the birth of fully fledged Independent.