By Oguwike Nwachuku
On Thursday, June 6, the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) wielded the big stick on Raymond Dokpesi’s Daar Communications Plc, suspending indefinitely, the operational licences of the African Independent Television (AIT) and Ray Power radio station.
The outrage that greeted the suspension of the licences and eventual closure of AIT and Ray Power was unprecedented. Yes, the protest was huge and real, while the wave of dissent was fitting and timely.
In taking the action, the NBC Director-General, Mallam Ishaq Modibbo-Kawu, told bewildered reporters who sat in audience at a news conference in Abuja that the two broadcasting stations would be off air until the matter for which they were shut “indefinitely” is resolved.
Modibo-Kawu reiterated that the suspension of the licence of the organisation was due to breaches of the broadcasting code.
He continued: “Today, the 6th of June, 2019, AIT/Raypower embarked on the use of inflammatory, divisive, inciting broadcasts and media propaganda against the government and the NBC for performing its statutory functions of regulating the broadcast industry in Nigeria.
“Consequently, after several meetings with management of Daar Communications Plc and many letters of warning, the NBC, today 6th June, 2019, took a decision to suspend the licence of Daar Communications Plc for failure to abide by the commission’s directives, the provisions of the NBC Act Cap N11. The shutdown order is until further notice.
“Following monitoring reports and complaints from concerned Nigerians about the broadcast contents of Daar Communications Plc’s AIT/Raypower broadcast stations, the NBC has over the last two years summoned on several occasions, management of the company to address issues regarding the operations of AIT/Raypower with the company, particularly, Political Platform and Kakaaki aired on AIT.
“In one of our meetings, held on 2nd June, 2017, the commission expressed its disappointment with the way and manner hate speech, divisive and inciting comments are applied in discussion of national issues in breach of the provisions of the NBC Act and Broadcast Code.
“Again, on 15th August, 2017, it became imperative to invite the company for yet another meeting on almost same issues. Furthermore, while addressing another meeting on 7th February, 2018, we highlighted issues of concern to the commission, which indicated that the company had been breaching the provisions of Sections 3.1.2 and 3.1.3 of the broadcast Code.
“The company’s delegates in their response promised to abate the breaches and comply with the law.
“However, on October 18, 2018, the commission was disturbed with the manner in which social media issues became part of the mainstream media unedited on AIT/Raypower, and was constrained to issue a generic letter to all broadcast stations on it.”
Same day, predictably, Dokpesi led the management team of the organisation on a protest to the National Assembly and embassies in Abuja on what he termed harassment and intimidation of the company and its officials.
The distrust over what was hovering around the group was enough for Dokpesi to hit the streets.
Unfortunately, that was not enough to stop the powers that be from hitting hard on them.
But they took an honourable step to take the government’s decision with every amount of equanimity, and headed for the court as is expected of people who live in civilized climes.
“As a law-abiding citizen, we’ve decided to abide by the closure order on the alleged breaches of the broadcasting code.
“As a law-abiding citizen, we will go to court for the court to interpret the laws of the land. We will go to court to seek redress; and that is the lawful thing to do and we will do it expeditiously,” Group Managing Director of Daar Communications Plc, Tony Akiotu reportedly said.
But it hurts that no sooner had Modibo- Kawu made his pronouncement than some felons you can only describe as irascible pro-government online goons, obviously on hired or rented mission by certain political class at the corridors of power, take to their Facebook walls to laud the shutting down of AIT and Ray Power.
From their responses and posts on Facebook (and they live by denigrating people who think different from their paymasters on any national issues) you could understand that they do not have the capacity to appreciate what the issues around freedom of speech are or should be.
This is what one man posted: “Shutting down AIT has afflicted so much pain on wailers. It’s like taking away breast milk from the mouths of suckling. I really like to see wailers to enjoy their foolery but I don’t know how to help them this time.”
Yet another lady posted this: “AIT wasn’t anti-government but anti-Nigeria. NBC should beat senses into them and others like them … The suspension/ban or whatever on AIT/Raypower wouldn’t have come at a better time. Saraki … gone AIT… gone Nigeria better … Sanction of Daar Communication, welcome development. City FM 105.1 & Niginfo FM 99.3 all in Lagos. Be Warned. … Free speech & the right to disseminate information is not a licence 4 lawlessness, irresponsibility & incitement to cause anarchy … NBC should beam their light in most of the Radio Station in d East. You would not want to listen to their reportage.”
There are more of such posts that ignorantly eulogise the NBC over the shutting of AIT and Ray Power, and they will definitely remind you that we have lost it due to our penchant for falling for filthy lucre that adorn the corridors of power and our failure to understand when power is abused for selfish purposes.
For those who do not know or pretend not to know, Dokpesi pioneered private radio and television stations in Nigeria and has used the AIT and Ray Power to fight national, continental and international courses of Nigeria, both at our trying moment of military dictatorship and now that we claim to be practicing democracy.
Dictatorship comes in different guises and those who have sense of history may well recall that Adof Hitler worked through processes under a civilian regime he stood for election and won to get to the point of becoming a full blown dictator and terror to the entire world as the Second World War would eventually show.
Hitler’s targets were the Legislature, Judiciary, Academia, Government institutions, media, influence peddlers and anyone or anything that stood on his way to achieving his dictatorial calling.
Sani Abacha’s story is still very fresh on our minds. Just yesterday, Abacha who wanted to transform from a military dictator to civilian president also has his agenda properly cut out and before we say jack, all the registered political parties operating in Nigeria prior to his death in 1997 had adopted him as their sole presidential candidate. It was an aberration. An abnormality. It makes no sense recalling how Abacha cowered everyone – political class, the media, the academia and the business community – and made his personae almost akin to Nigeria.
In the thick of the Abacha military junta and those before and after him, the media which Dokpesi’s Ray Power and AIT were critical holders came handy, and nobody saw all the risks the organisations took then for the sake of Nigeria and Nigerians as anti-thethical to their interests. Then, it was all praises for the media and for AIT and Ray Power, and for the foresight of the founder, Dokpesi. Then, they were doing their work and creditably even though they risked everything, including their lives.
A lot of things that ought to challenge the government in power today are happening before our eyes. Insecurity of the highest order in the form of terrorism, herdsmen menace, armed banditry, kidnapping, ritual murder, armed robbery, and others like unemployment, under-employment, poverty and diseases.
We also battle lack of basic infrastructure like good roads, electricity, good drinking water, among others which are enough to keep a government that is focused and desirous of making positive impact serious rather than the pleasure of looking for media houses to strangulate and shut down.
Those who are stoking the fire for the media to be muzzled using the AIT and Ray Power saga to test the waters will soon realize that in the due season the law of karma will be real.
It does not matter the story any one is hanging on the shoulders of the Daar Communications Plc and its outfits, but like that excitable character dishing out the views of her paymasters by suggesting extension of the hammer to the South East, and Lagos, there is nothing new on the horizon to be afraid of.
But the lady who is recommending stiffer sanctions, howbeit ignorantly, ought to be reminded that as gorilla journalism once flourished here and was used to keep the likes of Abacha on their toes, and make people like her appear like humans, it can still flourish again if it is established that we are dealing with the most rabid dictators in power masquerading as democrats in today’s Nigeria.
Come to think of it, what is this infraction Modibo-Kawu is talking about we have not seen before?
All of the sudden, Lai Mohammed, the arrowhead of gutter languages during the unfortunate regime of former President Goodluck Jonathan and now as former minister of information to President Muhammdu Buhari and supervisor of the government agencies in charge of information dissemination has become the champion of hate speech and fake news which he recently introduced into the media lexicon.
And they seem also not to know that the so-called fake news is never a new development if the doctrine of objectivity and fair play that media practice is anchored on is anything to go by.
Are we now surprised why the other day the National Assembly information unit came out with extremely stringent accreditation requirement? It is obvious who the actors in the attempt to gauge media operations within the legislature are, more so, as some political big wigs in the ruling APC have taken it upon themselves to share out positions in a desperate move to control the leadership of a critical arm of government whose independence is germane to effective democratic practice and nation’s survival.
How does one explain the desperate attempt to compel some senators interested in contesting for the principal offices to suspend their ambition in the name of party interest? What party interest supersedes the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians? A party interest that does not take into cognizance equity, fairness, unity of the country, among others, because of the inordinate ambition of some overzealous politicians to have a free ride to 2023 even before the competence of those elected in 2019 are tested? If that is not intimidation, what then is?
How does one explain the recent clean bill of health given to former Governor Danjuma Goje of Gombe state, a man facing fraudulent case with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), but was called to a meeting with Buhari to jettison his Senate Presidency ambition, after which the same EFCC announced withdrawal of the N25billion case against Goje?
Nobody who watched Goje on television and heard him speak glowingly about his loyalty to Buhari instead of Nigeria will be stupid not to understand why he stepped down from the race. This is Nigeria where the government that claims to be fighting corruption uses the same tool as carrot and stick.
Let us even assume that AIT and Ray Power are guilty as charged, but why would their shutting down be ordered few days to inauguration of 9th National Assembly if politics at its peak was not the consideration?
Dokpesi said: “I, however, cannot ignore that our regulator, the NBC, today is under the leadership of a partisan politician. Ishaq Modibo-Kawu, the director-general of the NBC, was an aspirant of the APC for the governorship of Kwara State before the recently concluded general elections in Nigeria.
“Is he in a position to regulate freely and fairly? Is he devoid of partisan interest in regulating the industry? The fact that he lost his primaries and returned to resume as DG of the NBC is in itself despicable.”
Dokpesi also accused NBC of stunting the growth of AIT and Ray Power. He said in spite of a global broadcast network licence granted to Daar Communications by the late Abacha administration in 1994, Modibo-Kawu has stalled the inauguration of the company’s stations in Yola, Awka and Sokoto since 2016.
Truth is that evil men who are power drunk are instigating all manner of things in Nigeria, including killings, destruction of property, and other devilish acts to achieve their selfish political aims. Again, it is all about 2023 and like I said before, the law of retributive justice will definitely apply, and very soon.
The ways of the dictators mean that people must always do what they say or wish or think. And in our case where there seems to be signs of leadership mutation, willing accomplices in all strata of our society, including the media, are at work and that underscores why some practitioners are romanticizing their views on the shutting of the media houses last week.
Whatever the agenda, one must acknowledge the intervention of the Nigerian Press Organisation (NPO), comprising the Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON), Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) and Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) to ensure that sanity is restored on both sides – DAAR Communications Plc and the NBC.
It is hoped that come June 13 when the matter returns to the court everybody must have come to their senses.