From out of the blues, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), in a letter dated March 27,\u00a0 announced the imposition of a N5 million fine against Channels television for its broadcast of a live interview with the Vice Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party in the recent general elections, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed. In the interview, Mr. Baba-Ahmed had stated that there was a constitutional basis to halt the inauguration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the announced winner of the 2023 Presidential election. The interview anchor, Seun Okinbaloye had during the interview, queried Mr. Baba-Ahmed\u2019s postulations on the inauguration of Tinubu. This did not however seem to have made any impression on NBC, in its exercise of power to sanction broadcast stations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Human rights\norganisations and stakeholders in Nigeria\u2019s civic space have frequently\nquestioned NBC\u2019s arbitrary use of regulatory powers to stifle free expression,\ncontrary to constitutional guarantees. In a statement on the matter, Policy and\nLegal Advocacy Centre (PLAC) noted that the NBC has resorted to arbitrary and\nfrequent imposition of fines on broadcast stations for so-called breaches of\nBroadcasting Code. In a Call-to-Action issued on April 3, 2023, PLAC had called\non the Human Rights Committees of the National Assembly \u2013 Senate and House of\nRepresentatives, to amend the NBC Act and prohibit the Commission\u2019s constant\nuse of sanctions against broadcast stations. A key complaint against the NBC is\nits failure to provide the opportunity for fair hearing to broadcast stations\non complaints made against them and lack of any stipulation or guideline on the\nexercise of its power to impose sanctions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In its own\nstatement, the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria expressed concern over the\ndeclining trust of stakeholders in the independence of NBC. The group stated\nthat the NBC did not investigate or provide opportunity for defence in relation\nto the petition written against Channels Television by the All Progressives\nCongress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council. \nIt further stated that the NBC did not follow the procedure for handling\ncomplaints as provided in the Broadcasting Code. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reacting to\nthe fine imposed on Channels Television, the National Human Rights Commission\ncalled for caution on the part of the NBC in carrying our its responsibilities\nas a regulator. Speaking at one of the Commission\u2019s programmes, Hilary Ogbonna,\nProject Coordinator at the Commission noted that the sanction of media\norganisations based on complaints by political parties was creating a negative\nnarrative of democracy in the country. He added that sanctions should be the\nlast resort in the media industry due to the critical role of the sector. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other\norganisations that have spoken against the constant use of fines by the NBC to\nsanction broadcast stations include Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability\nProject (SERAP) and Amnesty International, Nigeria. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From out of the blues, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), in a letter dated March 27,\u00a0 announced the imposition of a N5 million fine against Channels television for its broadcast of a live interview with the Vice Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party in the recent general elections, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed. In the interview, Mr. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3201"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3206,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3201\/revisions\/3206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}