By Dayo Omoogun
Media Rights Agenda (MRA) and the International Press Centre (IPC) two non- governmental Organisations devoted to free press, today, in a joint statement condemned the sanctioning
of three television stations , AIT, Channels and ARISE, by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) over the coverage of the #ENDSARS protests.
The statement described the Commission’s action as an outrageous violation of the Constitution and basic principles of fair hearing which cannot be allowed to stand.
The Organisations pointed out that the Commission while indicting and penalising the stations failed to specify the particular broadcast that fell short of its prescribed standards.
They also complained that the Commission’s action was akin to being complainant, prosecutor and judge in one’s case all at once.
The NBC had fined each of the three stations – Channels Television, Africa Independent Television (AIT) and ARISE Television – N3 million as penalty for their alleged use of unsubstantiated footages from social media in their coverage of the #ENDSARS protests and gave them three weeks from the date of receipt of the letter to pay the amount to avoid further sanctions.
The Commission said it had earlier written to them on October 21, 2020, where they were “cautioned on the sustained use of Fake News, disturbing visuals, close-up shots and attacks in the coverage of the ENDSARS protests”.
It stated that although social media may be a source of information, it is incumbent on broadcasters to verify such materials before usage and drew attention to some provisions of the Broadcasting Code, implying that the provisions had been breached but the Organisations pointed out that this was done “without indicating any broadcast that breached any of these provisions”.
The statement cautioned the Commission not to turn itself into a kangaroo court and to reverse the decision in order to avert the local and international embarrassment that could befall her and the country.
MRA’s Executive Director, Mr. Edetaen Ojo, said “a situation where the NBC, which is so glaringly lacking in independence and subject to the direct control of political authorities, wrote the Nigeria Broadcasting Code creating the offences for which the stations were sanctioned and was the complainant in the allegations against the stations, prosecuted them and sat in judgment on the matter without even giving the stations any opportunity to defend themselves against the charges while also imposing a fine of N3 million on each of them, which it intends to collect and pocket, is offensive to any notion of fair hearing, equity or justice.”
According to him, “Every Nigerian ought to be scandalized by this obscene violation of a principle that is sacrosanct not only under our Constitution but under every regional and international human rights instrument to which Nigeria is a state party. It portrays Nigeria as crude and primitive and will no doubt bring the country to ridicule.” He pledged that his organization would take legal action to challenge the NBC’s action.
Mr. Lanre Arogundade, the Executive Director of IPC, spoke in the same vein saying, “The NBC has in this matter again constituted itself into the accuser, the prosecutor and the judge in its own case. It is indeed strange that the fines were arbitrarily imposed without giving the concerned media outlets the option of defending the allegations. All this constitutes an affront on rule of law”.
Mr. Arogundade said IPC would team up with MRA to use the instrumentality of the law to challenge the absurdities perpetrated by NBC.