Instead of a medical job, I ended owning a radio station in London
- Says Akin Omo Akin

Akindele Akisanmi in the studio

Akindele Akisanmi, known in the entertainment circles as Akin Omo Akin, is the proprietor of Surprise FM, London. The Abeokuta-born Akisanmi speaks about the station, its operations in London and how it is catering to homesick Nigerians and others in need of information about Nigeria with Akintayo Abodunrin.

HOW did you come by broadcasting, having stud-
ied community medicine?
Like others looking for greener pastures, I left Nigeria in 1995 after I retired from the Ogun State Local Government Civil Service. I was an Assistant Chief Community Health Officer in charge of Ado-Odo Ota Local Government and I retired as a level 13 officer before I left for London.

I studied community medicine at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Enugu, and you are right to wonder about the relationship between what I studied and what I now do. Actually, I didn’t know I would go into broadcasting although before I left Nigeria, I loved Yoruba culture. I actually had a choral group because all of us in my family were into music from childhood. The love I had for music made me to form a choral group which used to perform then on both OGTV and OGBC. But later on, I had interest in presentation.

When did you establish Surprise FM?
When I got to London, I was looking for a medical job but because it wasn’t really easy because I didn’t have valid papers, I had to look for other means of making both ends meet. So, I did some jobs like being a security man and a cargo handler before I listened one day to Empowered Radio around 1998. I think they started two months before I heard of them.

When I listened to them, I wasn’t impressed by their presentation so I talked to the owner of the station and he immediately agreed I should come over because they didn’t have presenters. Before I went there, I had started rehearsing because I had never done it before but I didn’t want to let myself down. When I got there, I entered the studio and since the owner of the station really didn’t know much about presentation, he didn’t care whether I knew what to do or not. He just left me there and walked away. That was how I started and I was surprised I did it the way I did not believe myself.

It was a chat-chat programme and people were calling in. Many of our people, they had been longing for such a thing because we listen to only the British radio and European radio stations. But Empowered Radio, having come on air two months previously and playing only music, people were so surprised to hear me present. Many people called in and the calls we had that day were about 20 while missed calls were around 30 contrary to the about 13 calls they had received during the station’s first two months of operation.

That was how the owner of the station decided to hold onto me. Immediately, I knew I had an herculean task. So, I went back home, brushed myself up and that was how I spent five years and eight months there. I stayed that long because most people that came to the station, either for sponsorship or adverts came through me.

When the opportunity came for me to have my own station, I had to utilise it. Although I sought for help but none came but I thank God I started it. But it wasn’t because Empowered Radio was there that made me establish a radio station, no. It is the love I have for Yoruba culture, heritage, everything about the Yoruba that made me to establish a station where 90 per cent of our programmes would be in Yoruba language. I knew our people are really missing home and things from home, so I tried to give them what I could in my own little way. I started Surprise FM on January 2, 2003.

How has the going been since you started?
When we started, people were thinking we won’t last but we thank God we are still surviving. However, it is not easy. What we are facing is tough but there are some things we cannot disclose the way we are going about them. But I thank God we were able to scale through. Subsequently, I decided to make it legal by streamlining. So, what we are doing now, that is even more advanced than the radio station is that we broadcast to the whole world through the internet. That is streamlining on the internet.

There, all our Yoruba listeners all over the world, what they’ve been missing, they now have it. We have most of our listeners from the United States, Europe and Asia. They call all the time, participate on the programme and it’s really my joy that I can do such a thing. And if I have my way, I would love to do all our programmes in Yoruba language because I cherish the language and I’m happy, I’m proud to be a Yoruba man and I will continue to uphold the rich culture of the Yoruba anywhere I go in the world.

We thank God that up till now, things are going according to our wish and we have so many other things we are planning to do. We hope to take Surprise FM to other parts of the world; I mean not through the internet now, we want to broadcast live.

Was it easy to get a licence for the station?
How many British radio stations do you have in Nigeria here? Do you have a licensed British radio station in Nigeria? None that I know.

That’s why it is not easy for any of us to be licensed there. And these are people who want to listen to things from their motherland. Then, if we can find a means of promoting our culture, and heritage, why not? But we don’t really want to do what the government will not like, that’s why we go on the internet.

But when people talk about Surprise FM London, they are talking about broadcasting open signals but I always bring them back to the licensed one so that some people who see nothing good in what others are doing won’t go about saying they are not licensed.

Eni to se obe ate, ti e ni ki orisa pa, eni ti o se rara nko (you asked the gods to kill a person who prepared soup without salt, what of the person who didn’t cook at all). You say they are not licensed, what have you done for your community? That means if we have the opportunity to serve them more than we are doing, we will do that.

Is the relationship between you and Nigerian artistes who come to London cordial?
All of them are my friends because we are really doing well in Surprise FM, thanks to God. That’s why any of them, anytime they come to UK, they will want to come to us. And when they come, in our little way, we appreciate them and encourage then to do more.

We relate well with all of them, not only the musicians, the presenters too. When they come to London, I give them the opportunity to present on Surprise without taking anything from them. Yemi Sonde was with me when he came to the UK; he’s my very good friend; Kola Olotu, Baba Gboin; Tunji Ajibade and a host of others.

How is the feedback you get from listeners?
Non Nigerians, even non-Africans, people from the Caribbean respond to some of our programmes, especially the ones they can understand, the English ones. Some of the musical programmes they don’t understand, they phone in and say they like the lyrics. We thank God so far and we still hope to serve our community better if we are given the opportunity to do so.

We are also striving to make sure we portray Nigeria well to the outside world. I used to tell people that even if we do anything bad, all these people abroad are doing worse. We should stop washing our dirty linens outside, we shouldn’t be condemning Nigeria as others do. But we are trying in our own little way to portray our positive image although that doesn’t stop us from commenting on things that are unsalutary.