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  • Updated: August 14, 2020

NBC Chairman Dismisses Amended Broadcasting Code As illegality Perpetrated By Lai Mohammed

NBC Chairman Dismisses Amended Broadcasting Code As illegali

The Chairman of the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC Board, Mr. Ika Bilbis, alongside other board members, has described the 6th National Broadcasting Code as an illegality perpetrated by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, and Acting Director-General of the Commission, Professor Armstrong Idachaba.

They stressed that the only NB code, which the board and other stakeholders recognize and shall work with, was the 6th edition, launched in 2019 in Kano, noting that 55 institutions and stakeholders, including the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON), Independent Broadcast Association of Nigeria (IBAN), private media outfits, broadcasters, notable media intellectuals, communication experts such as Soyinka, had, in different letters to the board, rejected the new code.

This was as the NBC handed down a N5million fine on Lagos-based radio station, Nigeria Info 99.3Fm, for violating the Nigeria Broadcasting Code by its handling of the programme: “Morning Cross Fire”, aired on August 10, 2020, between 8.30 am and 9.00 am in which it featured a former CBN Deputy Governor, Dr. Obadiah Mailafia.

In a press statement by the management, which was circulated by Director, Public Affairs, Ekanem Antia, the commission accused the station of providing its platform for the guest to promote unverifiable and inciting views that could encourage or incite to crime and lead to public disorder.

The commission insisted that the action of the radio station was in total violation of the newly amended NBC Code and directed it to pay the sum of N5,000,000 to serve as a deterrent to other stations.

However, the NBC Chairman, Alhaji Ikra Aliyu Bilbis, told reporters in Abuja yesterday that the actions of Mohammed and Armstrong Idachaba amounted to the usurpation of the powers of commission.

He stated that previous information ministers never interfered with the review of the code, noting that the NBC Act empowered the commission to regulate industry practice standards, not the Information Minister.

Bilbis declared that Mohammed’s version of the NBC Code falls short of basic regulation-making, standards, as it was marked by indifference to stakeholder inclusiveness.

“The board of the NBC wishes to make it quite clear that as long as it is in place, the only NB code that we recognize and which we shall work with, in the setting of operating policies and standards for NBC is the 6th edition of the NB Code, which was launched in 2019 in Kano. Any other purported review has no board endorsement and, therefore, cannot be utilised in regulating broadcasting in Nigeria.

“The danger of allowing the unilateral amendment of the NB Code to stand is that investors in the industry will lose confidence in the stability the broadcast ecosystem has enjoyed till date before the advent of the current Minister of Information.

“Our president and his team have worked so hard to galvanize local and foreign investment in Nigeria. Allowing obnoxious policies to take root in our investment culture will spell doom for creativity, enterprise, diversity, and the general development of broadcasting in Nigeria,” the NBC Chairman asserted.

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