Channels TV Risks Sanction for Broadcasting Inciting Comments by IPOB Leader, Warns NBC

• Asks station to suspend broadcast of programme -‘Politics Today’

By Olawale Ajimotokan

The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has said that Channels TV is liable to sanctions which could lead to the suspension of its broadcast license and a fine of N5 million for broadcasting an inciting, secessionist, false and derogatory declaration by a leader of the Independent People of Biafra on its programme on April 25, 2021.

The Acting Director-General NBC, Prof Amstrong Idachaba, in a letter dated April 26, 2021 and addressed to the Managing Director Channels TV, said the broadcast violated Sections 3.11.1 (b) and 5.4.3 of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code, which required a broadcaster to ensure that no programme contains anything which amounts to subversion of constituted authority or which compromises the unity of corporate existence of Nigeria as a sovereign state.
He also urged them to discontinue the further broadcast of the programme, Politics, Today.
Idachaba said that Channels ought to know that IPOB was a proscribed organisation as prescribed by the courts of the land, saying that the programme was a clear violation of the provisions of the Code and the extant provisions of the broadcasting Act.

He said for apparent breaches of the provisions of the law, Channels TV was liable to sanctions provided in Section 15 of the Code which prescribes among others suspension of broadcast licence and a fine of N5 million.
He subsequently reminded the station that it owes the country the responsibility for a truly professional and ethical guided broadcast station at times of crisis.
More to follow…