Chinese-owned pay TV platform StarTimes has launched a digital satellite TV service in Kpaduma, an underdeveloped rural community in Abuja.

The move gives the residents of Kpaduma the opportunity to watch programmes on satellite in the town for the first time.

The project was undertaken by StarTimes as part of an effort to provide 1,000 Nigerian villages with access to digital television under an aid programme that came out of the China-Africa summit in 2015.

Each village is to receive a 32-inch TV and two sets of solar-powered projectors, allowing villagers to watch  local and international digital TV shows.

Yusuf Dio, the prince of Kpaduma, said: “”We are very happy to have this [digital television service] in our household. It has brought so much joy and pleasure to my family.”

Lai Mohammed, Nigeria’s minister of information and culture, said: “The implementation complements the efforts of the Nigerian government to democratise access to information and entertainment through the digital switchover for television, which has now been rolled out in several states and the federal capital territory.”

Mohammed added that this would strengthen the relationship between China and Nigeria and urged StarTimes to hasten the installation of the TV satellite system in other parts of the country.

StarTimes – in partnership with Nigeria’s public TV company NTA – has made digital TV available to many Nigerians since 2010.

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