By Emma Ogbuehi
A civil society organisation, the Network for Best Practice and Integrity in Leadership, NEBPRIL has cautioned the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC not to inflame passions by seeking to truncate the free flow of information to the citizenry.
Coming on the heels of fines imposed on the broadcasting trio of ARISE News Channel, African Independent Television(AIT), and Channel’s Television by the Commission, NEBPRIL stated that the NBC could ill afford to act as complainant, prosecutor and judge in one fell swoop.
In a statement signed by the group’s chairman, Hon. Victor Afam Ogene, a former member of the House of Representatives, NEBPRIL wondered why the NBC did not query the television stations before arriving at the magisterial decision to impose fines on them, especially for carrying out their constitutional mandate.
“Like many Nigerians, we read with consternation the fines of between two to three million Naira imposed on the stations over their coverage of the #ENDSARS protests which recently swept across the country.
“These are tenuous times that require circumspection by public officials in the discharge of their duties; leaving many to wonder what the rush to fine the stations was all about, especially as the Panel of Inquiry and Restitution for Victims set up by the Lagos state government was yet to be inaugurated when the NBC slammed its hammer”, the statement observed.
It argued that the rationale for the sanctions, as announced by the NBC’s Acting Director-General, Professor Armstrong Idachaba, does not sound plausible to every sane Nigerian who followed the protest via the media platforms while it lasted.
According to the group, the sanctions by the NBC constitute an affront to the Journalism profession, stressing that it views the action as an attempt to muzzle free press and cow the media from informing the public about the goings-on in the society and to chiefly hold the government accountable to the people.
The organisation further remarked; “Recently, the world witnessed #Blacklivesmatter protests in the United States of America occasioned by the unlawful execution of a citizen, George Flyod, by a police officer.
“Despite replaying footage gotten from the different sites of the protests, oftentimes from participants of the various marches, no station was fined for discharging their constitutional mandates of informing the members of the public”.
It added that if indeed, Professor Idachaba was to do anything noble, he would have commended the Nigerian media for ensuring all-side, all-angle coverage of the #EndSARS protests rather than imposing the infamous sanctions on the three TV houses.
NEBPRIL called on the NBC to immediately withdraw the fines and also desist from acts that will gag the press and inhibit free speech in the country.