NBC’s clampdown on free press

LAST week, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) imposed a fine of N5 million on Channels Television for allegedly violating the NBC code in a programme with the Labour Party’s vice-presidential candidate in the 2023 polls, Senator Datti Baba-Ahmed. The NBC, which communicated its decision  to the station in a letter signed by its director-general, Balarabe Ilelah, on March 27, said Datti’s comments on the Politics Today programme of the station on Wednesday, March 22, were capable of inciting public disorder and, therefore, violated some sections of the broadcasting code. Claiming that it had warned the station several times to consider public interest before airing any of its programmes, the NBC then pronounced: “Consequently, on the following infractions, Channels Television is hereby sanctioned and shall pay a penalty of N5,000,000 (five million naira) only in the first instance,” adding that any further violations by the station would attract higher sanctions. It advised the station “to pay within two weeks from the day of receipt of this letter or the penalty will be graduated.”

For context, the trigger of the latest fine was Datti’s call on President Muhammadu Buhari and the Chief Justice of Nigeria not to swear in the president-elect, Mr Bola Ahmed Tinubu, on the ground that his election was against the constitution. Doing so, he warned, would amount to ending democracy in Nigeria. It is strange that the NBC would, against the grain of logic and decency, equate this declaration of personal opinion by Senator Datti as an attempt to subvert Nigeria’s democracy. For starters, there are millions of Nigerians who believe, and for valid reasons, that the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections and the March 18 governorship and state assembly elections were a complete travesty, and expressing such view does not constitute incitement in any form. Indeed, we must ask the NBC which is more hurtful to the Nigerian State: conducting fraudulent elections or expressing outrage over fraudulent elections. We would think the former to be the more hurtful.

The NBC’s fine is made all the more ludicrous by the fact that those who believe that the elections were free and fair have, in the exercise of their own inalienable right to free speech, gone after Senator Datti and torn him to shreds. If the NBC would not sanction media houses for allowing those who believe that the elections were free and fair to air their views, why would it sanction them for giving air time to those who do not? Are people supposed to think alike in this democracy? Is a democracy supposed to be without legitimate dissent? Indeed, would the NBC also go ahead to sanction the international organisations that have dismissed the elections as a sham? We condemn the NBC’s action in its entirety. It is nothing but economic strangulation and emotional subjugation of media organisations for doing their job.

To be sure, we do not condone inciting comments, which is why we have, on countless occasions, even before the NBC was  formed, cautioned members of the political class to be circumspect in their utterances. By the same token, we are completely opposed to any form of speech police, knowing how such could easily breed dictatorship. The right of Nigerians to express opinion, even controversial ones, could not have been taken away with the establishment of the NBC, which over the years had turned itself into  the mouthpiece of the Establishment, routinely imposing fines on television and radio stations for statements deemed contrary to the broadcasting code and without giving opportunity to the accused organisations to defend themselves. This is arbitrary, unfair and unjust. It amounts to an attempt to muzzle the media and turn the democracy for which many Nigerians paid the supreme price into a dictatorship. Acting as both the accuser and the judge in its own case, the NBC engages in selective persecution of media houses on behalf of a criminally inept, horrendously undemocratic, and cancerously corrupt political establishment. Nothing can be more ludicrous.

How could NBC personnel simply sit down in their offices and make pronouncements on the conduct of broadcast organisations without affording those organisations the opportunity to defend themselves? That is totalitarianism at its fullest demonstration and should have no place within the democratic system that Nigeria is currently subscribed to. Indeed, it is even important to have independent observers to take on the role of judges on such allegations and not the NBC as the accuser! In the absence of such a fair and transparent process, the conduct of the NBC has been no more than a partisan exercise to muzzle the media on behalf of those superintending over its affairs. This kind of situation is unacceptable and we call on concerned media groups and institutions to collectively seek a nullification of this arbitrary and undemocratic power and conduct of the NBC in the court of law.

It ought to be clear that any absolute repository of power is against democratic tenets and should not be tolerated or allowed to subsist under a democracy. The current disposition of the NBC is anti-democratic and anti-free press and should be urgently reviewed. We hereby urge the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), the Nigeria Guild of Editors (NGE) and other key stakeholders in the media industry to go to court to try the functions, powers and overall mandate of NBC.  We demand a neutral body in place of the NBC to regulate and adjudicate in events of perceived infractions. It has become abundantly clear that the entire provisions of the NBC Act need thorough scrutiny.