August 4, 2022

The National Broadcasting Commission has fined Multichoice Nigeria Ltd, part of a South African pay-TV group, and others 5 million naira each for airing a BBC report that it said “glorified the activities of bandits and undermines national security.”

The NBC disclosed this in a statement titled, ‘NBC Sanction PayTV Platforms,’ issued on Wednesday and signed by its Director-General, Balarabe Shehu Illela.

It also fined local channel Trust TV, part of the group that owns the prominent Daily Trust newspaper, for its own report on banditry.

“The Commission wishes to seize this opportunity to advise broadcasters to be circumspect and deliberate in the choice and carriage of contents deleterious to Nigeria’s national security,” NBC said in a statement.

The Daily Trust quoted its management as saying, “We wish to state unequivocally that as a television station, we believe we were acting in the public interest by shedding light on the thorny issue of banditry.”

“This story is overwhelmingly in the public interest and the BBC stands by its journalism,” the BBC said in an emailed statement according to Reuters.

Multichoice had no immediate comment.

Armed criminals, known locally as bandits, have kidnapped thousands of Nigerians over the past two years.

“Consequently, the airing and carriage of these documentaries, contravened the provisions of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code, Sixth edition, especially, the underlisted Sections:

“3.1.1: no broadcast shall encourage or incite to crime. lead to public disorder or hate, be repugnant to public feelings or contain offensive reference to any person or organization, alive or dead or generally be disrespectful to human dignity.”

The D-G said that broadcaster should not transmit a programme that incites or likely to incite to violence among the populace, causing mass panic, political and social upheaval, security breach and general social disorder.

” Section 3.11.2 of the code said that the broadcaster shall ensure that law enforcement is upheld at all times in a manner depicting that law and order are socially superior to, or more desirable than crime or anarchy.””

The imposed penalties he explained, on affected broadcast media platforms and station was to be remitted not later than Aug. 30, 2022.

He warned that failure to comply with that would lead to the imposition of a higher sanction as provided in the Nigerian Broadcasting Code.

The NBC boss, therefore, enjoined broadcasters to be instruments of national unity and desist from falling into antics of using their platforms to promote and glamorize subversive elements and their activities.

“Every broadcast station or platform is responsible for the content it transmits or transmitted on its platform, and shall be held liable for any content in violation of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code.”