Chairman of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) board Ikra Bilbis has said that the Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed “erroneously” amended the sixth edition of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code.
During the unveiling of the reviewed code on August 4 in Lagos, Mohammed had said the amendments were necessitated by a presidential directive in the wake of the 2019 general elections.
Then in June, the acting Director-General of NBC Armstrong Idachaba who is also a member of the board dismissed a call for position papers by the board of the commission.
But Mr. Bilbis told a press conference in Abuja on Thursday that he received over 50 position papers for the sixth amendment of the code but none of them was used.
“Following the 2019 national elections, some members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) made observations to the Honourable Minister of Information at a FEC meeting about the divisive broadcasts engaged in by some broadcast media before, during and after the elections and the need to strengthen the operations of the NBC to avert such future occurrence,” he said.
“This noble observation of Mr. President was unfortunately misunderstood by the Hon. Minister of Information.
“Instead of studying and following the law, relevant rules and regulations, and direct the appropriate authorities as stipulated by the law to act on, he erroneously embarked on the review alone.
“As a board, we have received and taken our time to compile the responses of numerous stakeholders which include our Nobel laureate, activists, legal practitioners, broadcasters, investors, BON, Content Creators, Copyright experts, and professional organizations. Most of them have adduced reasonable reasons against the proposed amendment.
“The NBC was set up by law and there is an Act that guides its operations. The Honourable Minister therefore cannot usurp the powers of the board as clearly stated in the act. Any such action by the Honourable Minister is illegal.”
Bilbis added that the amendment would destroy investments and lead to job losses.
The NBC had earlier on Thursday fined a radio station Nigeria Info N5 million for comments deemed as hate speech which were made by a former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Obadiah Mailafia.
