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PEOPLES DAILY WEEKEND SATURDAY 10 — SUNDAY 11, MARCH, 2012
Womanhood
I started as a Traffic Officer, now I’m ace broadcaster —Rita Eghujovbo T
h e road to the top as they say is full of thorns. How did you start the journey that has brought you this far? I am a pioneer staff of Hot FM which will clock seven years later this month. I started as a Traffic Officer and that was like a very low position but I was just two years out of school then, and I think I knew what I wanted. I believed in the organisation I was joining and I was not scared to take a step with Mrs. Chris Anyanwu leading the way since she is a core professional and surely, she gave us the necessary solid foundation we needed to build our careers and to grow. I learnt a lot at each stage through this process, moved from one department to the other and presently, I am not just a manager but I am also working in the programmes department. I hosted the Morning Show on Hot Fm for close to five years before I left it to do core programming like the Birthday Show and Dateline Abuja which I co-produce and present as well. It's been seven years of fun being in the broadcast industry especially on radio. You have to know what you are doing especially as things are changing everyday and the competition is getting stiffer from within and from without so for you to remain relevant, it takes being on top of your game always. This is what I have always done relentlessly. On your job, you are called the Queen of the Airwaves. How did you earn for yourself that acronym? My colleagues call me the 'Queen of the Airwaves' because of my ability to master the intrigues and varieties that crop up so often in a broadcaster's daily romance with the microphones in the sound proof radio studios. Like I said earlier, my keen commitment to hosting the Birthday Show in the morning belt of the station and effectively co-producing and presenting 'Dateline Abuja' helped a lot to make me a household name and symbol of excellence amongst my peers and fans who are spread in clusters around the Federal Capital Territory, and the North Central States of Nasarawa, Niger, Kogi and parts of Kaduna State which is the reach of my current stable, 98.3 Hot FM. What are the challenges you encounter on the job and
Women can excel in any chosen career as long as they choose to persevere to stay on top of the competition. This is the view of Rita Eghujovbo, a Manager, Co-producer and Presenter of 'Dateline Abuja' with the Hot FM 98.3, Abuja. In this interview with Miriam Humbe, the Marketer, Communications and Advertising Consultant, and hostess of the popular Birthday Show on Hot FM station speaks on the challenges of staying afloat, family life and more. Excerpts:
Rita Eghujovbo
how do you overcome them? There may be challenges but I think why I don't feel them is because I enjoy my job. The advertising business for instance, is thought to be more of a man's job but when you are worth your salt, when you know what you are doing, it is difficult for people to push you around. They may look at you and say, oh that woman, but when you speak and make presentations and prove to all that you know your onions, they will respect you for that. Apart from that, I don't think there are challenges on the job that I can't surmount. The major challenge of a woman in broadcasting or advertising is
that you have to be 300 times better than the man on the job because people have this erroneous belief that it is a man's world when it comes to certain professions or jobs. So you have to work harder to let people know that you are worth your onions because it is what you are capable of delivering that earns you respect in the eyes of everyone and says a lot about who you are. As women, we have to think of motherhood and all that but I was doing the morning show and waking up at 5: AM even when I was pregnant. That was a bit challenging. But like I said, if you love the job you are doing, no matter how tight your schedules
are, you programme yourself in order to meet your goals. When I am in the office at eight o'clock in the morning, I know that by four o'clock later in the day, I have school runs to do so I have to programme my work and time such that I do what I am supposed to do and at the right time. It is a matter of strategically planning your time. If you don't plan, that is when you have a big problem. In my career, one of the things that have worked for me is effective time management. For young women who plan to go into broadcasting, what are they supposed to do? I will say to them, just be good. There is something that one of my lecturers taught me in the first lecture I had with her at the University of Benin, when she said, 'I am going to speak specifically to the ladies. Read your books. Know what you are doing. If you get your scores right, no lecturer can victimise you'. And it is only the student who does not read who will go and meet a lecturer and say, 'what are we going to do?' Then later you turn around and say you are being victimised. So the bottom line is, do your work well. In the broadcasting industry, when you are good, you are good. Broadcast stations are coming up everywhere but when they know you are good, they will keep you. There is competition with lots of people looking for jobs so you have to work hard to impress your employers. You have to build
your career first of all, deemphasising money. Money will come when you put in your best. At the moment, it is pleasing to know that the women are taking over the world of broadcasting with the likes of Eugenia Abu of NTA, Tosin Dokpesi of AIT and so on. How do you cope with being a mother, wife and corporate woman? That's a lot but like I said earlier, it all boils down to time planning. And I must say I am lucky to be married to the best man on planet earth. He is always hands-on and there for the kids and me. He is not the kind of man who will say 'you are the woman, you have to do this and you are not supposed to do that'. He gives me all the necessary support. He is interested in my career so I am able to forge ahead because of the firm support from my husband. In the morning, he knows the kids have to go to school by 7: 30, and I have to go off to work too. So when I need that helping hand to get things done at home, he is always there for me. My kids are also very supportive because they are very stress less and that makes my job a whole lot easier. I am glad to be their mother. If you were not into broadcasting, what else would you rather be doing? Ah! I think I would be lecturing. When I finished school, I had a job offer as a lecturer in my department because I finished there with the best result but of course, I followed my heart because my husband was in Abuja so I had to join him. I have done TV before. I started broadcasting when I was at school. So naturally, I tilted towards broadcasting when I left school and when I heard of Hot FM, I said well, that should be a good place to learn and that's why I came here.
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My colleagues call me the 'Queen of the Airwaves' because of my ability to master the intrigues and varieties that crop up so often in a broadcaster's daily romance with the microphones in the sound proof radio studios.