ORIKI IS THE NEW FACE OF CHRISTIAN TELEVISION: KINGSLEY OKONKWO

KINGSLEY OKONKWO

He has always been a businessman with a bias for entertainm:ent. He also happens to be a deep Christian. A graduate of one Nigeria;s foremost universities, the University of Calabar, Kingsley Okonkwo one of the directors of the new Christian internet television platform Oriki is a young man with a huge passion to make a difference. He is successful business man who has worked in the oil industry since his return from the UK, and a sports analyst, we caught up with the amiable fellow in Oriki's new offices in Ikeja, Lagos. He spoke to us enthusiastically about the new project which he dreamed up with movie director Reginald Ebere.

Enjoy this.

TSF: Good afternoon Kingsley. We will first start by asking you what Oriki is all about and why the name Oriki?

KINGSLEY: Oriki is exactly what it says. It is a Christian television channel that will run programming which is friendly to Christians all over the world. The only difference is that it will not run on terrestrial tv or direct to home television which most people here call Cable Television. It will run on the internet. As for the reason why we chose Oriki as a name to represent our brand and the channel; In the Yoruba tongue, Oriki means the lyrical adulations and praise that you sing to and pour on something that is praiseworthy. Our God deserves all our praise even if it is just for being God so we decided to do something for him that will represent our praise. Oriki is a way for us to lift our praise and the praise of Christians all over the world collectively to God. Some people have said or rather have suggested that we borrowed the name from another internet film site IROKO TV. When they say that i smile. First we are not a film site though we would show movies, we are a Christian Television platform that aims to satisfy the need of Christians for decent, morally upright, edifying and uplifting Christian entertainment. The two names may sound similar but i do not see how a tree can rival the praises of God.

TSF: You mentioned that the Chanel will run only on the internet. Why only the internet, why not on other television platforms?

KINGSLEY:  The reason is simple. The world no longer converges on television screens but on the internet. Every second of the day almost half of the world's population are on line at the same time. What we are doing is beyond reaching a few hundred people. Our Lord gave us what is called the great commission-"Go ye into the world and preach the good news of the gospel to all creation." That is what we have done. We intend to reach the world. This is beyond Nigeria, beyond Africa. Beyond anything else you have ever known. As we speak right now we have people from all over the world producing programs which will run on this channel. We also looked through the internet and found out that the devil had literarily taken over cyberspace. There are well over a million pornographic internet sites alone, there are sites that urge people to commit suicide, sites for the cult of Satan and all kinds of things that are corrupting the minds of people and compromising their standards and values . A generation of demonic, evil monsters are being created on the internet and Christians have failed to realize what is going on. We have been slow to react to this aerial bombardment on Christianity. In retrospect we should have never been reacting we should have been pro-active from the beginning in using the internet. So what we are doing now is reinforcing our beliefs, taking back what has been stolen from us and attacking the devil in the places where it will hurt him the most-the hearts and minds of young people. 

TSF: Noble ideas but how do you intend to achieve all this? Why should I watch Oriki?

KINGSLEY: For the simple reason that it  offers you everything good from every culture, every tradition, every doctrine of Christianity and it is refreshingly different.  We have a colorful collage of mind blowing Christian content which ranges from comedy shows, to movies, soaps and series, interviews, game shows, documentaries, news, musicals, talk shows and you will be surprised christian sports shows. There is so much to see, to hear and to experience that when you come unto this platform I can guarantee you, your television set will become very boring. Oriki will change how people perceive Christianity. Our aim is to make it unfashionable for people not to be Christians.

TSF: Don't you think that is a tall order?

Kingsley Okonkwo

KINGSLEY:(Smiles) To you maybe. We are Christians and to us all things are possible. We are not going to deceive ourselves into believing that the devil will just sit quiet why we take over his territory but we know that it is already a won fight. We are starting very small but that we will grow is very certain. Your business as a Christian is to visit the sight and see what we have, our business is to make sure that you come back and finally stay and with every sense of modesty, we are good at what we do.

TSF: How then does the Christian benefit from this?

KINGSLEY: Not just the Christian but everybody else. The Christian who signs up to Oriki gets news, information, entertainment, education from this platform. He gets to interact with people of the same faith and synergize with like minds. The church or ministry which signs up with Oriki truly becomes an international ministry with a voice that will reach the world. The pastor who signs up with Oriki becomes a universal evangelist preaching his message to all the nations of the world and all the peoples of the earth at the same time and winning souls everywhere. The non-believer who signs up with Oriki is sure to have a life changing experience and all Christians can use Oriki as a tool for evangelism by inviting their friends to the platform, Oriki will do the rest because we are sure that your pastor will sooner than later be on the platform. The business man who signs up with Oriki is sure to get his product seen by over a billion Christians across the world. So everybody will benefit from this.
The way the platform is designed everybody has a choice. The programs are not perishable like on television. They stay on the platform so you can watch what you want to watch at your convenience and for as many times as you want to watch it and the cost of being on the platform is amazingly cheap. It costs about five dollars which here in Nigeria is about 750 Naira to subscribe to the platform every month which is far lower that any television tariff in Africa. The streaming speeds are extremely fast and we have integrated unto every other platform so you can watch from you IOS' and androids mobile phones and other devices without going to download any aps anywhere.     

TSF: Any thoughts of expansion beyond what you guys are doing now?

KINGSLEY: Definitely. Not to grow and expand is to atrophy and die. We intend to be here until the rapture, then we can shut down and go home. We have plans to expand in several directions and get involved in different things but what we have in hand now is very challenging and we have to make it work first. After that we will see what happens. Remember that we only just started test transmission and have not even peopled the channel with programs. Right now it is still open and free for everybody to watch. We will grow and expand but you can drop in now and see what we have.

As we walked away from the Adeniyi Jones offices of Oriki I could not wait to settleinto the car and find Oriki on my I-PAD and immerse myself in what like Kingsley mentioned with so much enthusiasm will change the face of Christian television.

http://www.orikimedia.com

by Gabriel Egbuchina