The National Safety Partnership of Liberia (NASAPAL) describes the new Liberia Broadcasting System (LBS) Director-General, Eugene J. Fahngon, as someone who will take deliberate actions by his pronouncement that he would realign the entity.
The group stated that the socio-cultural and economic undertone of Fahngon urge to devote ample airtime to materials of Liberian artists is commendable because it would help assure safety of the public.
Speaking when he took over the LBS on Friday, March 22, 2024, Fahngon declared his administration would ensure featuring of songs, films, documentaries, or plays produced by Liberians.
NASAPAL said it is in this direction that the group feels motivated and pledges its support and asks Liberians everywhere to uplift the Fahngon-initiative.
“The backing must come from individuals and groups of entertainers and communication practitioners such as DJs, radio and TV programmers, jingle-producers, advertisement developers, hospitality areas, vernacular story-tellers and singers, costume-designers, cuisines and etiquettes, language and speech specialists,” NASAPAL said.
According to NASAPAL, it means all and sundry must come together and work to make this cultural rebirth possible. Even billboard messaging must join this effort.
It appears Liberia’s partners also see the need to consciously promote the country’s enviable art and culture.
NASAPAL thinks in 2017, the European Union Delegation in Liberia collaborated with Liberian film actors, and held the first ever EU-Liberian Film Festival.
Films collected from European and African countries, including Liberia, were screened at different locations in Monrovia. One of the Liberian films that captivated audiences was “The Land beneath Our Feet”.
It portrays the fuss over land among Liberians, due to its economic and traditional importance to the people.
Also, in May, 2017, the Delegation sponsored the reproduction of New Zealand’s Peter Pinney’s 1972 collection of folktales unique to the tribal groupings in Liberia.
The reproduced version titled: “LEGENDS OF LIBERIA,” is currently in circulation and enriching Liberian literature.
In view of all this, the public safety organization requests the Ministry of Information Cultural Affairs and Tourism (MICAT) to urgently resuscitate the divisions of the Ministry that have been dormant since the civil war ended in 2003.
They are the Central Printing Incorporated, and the Film and Motion Picture Division, both of which would largely help to liven the creative spirits of Liberians.
Furthermore, NASAPAL implores MICAT to spearhead the cultural rejuvenation. It must do so by revisiting Liberia’s cultural policy or developing a well-thought version that can be made a part of curricula of cultural studies in schools, so that the country’s upcoming leaders learn and practice the ways of life of Liberian people.
NASAPAL and the LBS have a longstanding partnership spinning from 2008 to date.
Over the years, the State-owned broadcasting house aired the organization’s public safety, and road safety jingles, hosted talk-shows about its work, and even highlighted its press releases in newscasts.
In fact, preparations are underway to name the organization’s conference room after the late Mulbah Kesselee, one of the progenitors of the ongoing simple Liberian English newscasts on the LBS.
