Days after he launched the amended 6th Edition of the Broadcasting Code, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has been accused of singlehandedly reviewing the document.
The Governing Board of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), accused the Minister of duplicity on Thursday at a news briefing in Abuja.
The Board Chair, Ikra Aliyu Bilbis, alleged that instead of involving all stakeholders in the amendment exercise, Mohammed did it alone.
Bilbis claimed that the Minister deliberately twisted President Muhammadu Buhari’s instructions to satisfy a pre-determined end that will ultimately harm the broadcast industry.
The Board Chair said: “From the history, traditions and the convention of the NBC, no Honourable Minister of Information has ever interfered in any NB Code review. After the 2019 presentation of the 6th Code (which is the present one), the Hon. Minister has acted alone with just a handful of his loyalists who have written a new NB Code that has created an uproar in the industry, threatening to destroy investments and lead to job losses.
“The Honourable Minister has constantly dropped the name of President Muhammadu Buhari as having approved his version of the code review. The NB Code is a regulatory framework put together jointly by stakeholders to guide their operations in the industry. It is therefore not a unilateral government instrument and is already covered by Law hence, not requiring any further Presidential approval. This might be the reason why till date the Hon. Minister cannot show us a copy of the Presidential approval.
“President Buhari is a stickler for due process, and he always insists on organisations doing the right thing. The Honourable Minister’s version of the revised NB Code does not meet any known criteria of due process and inclusiveness of stakeholders.”
Bilkis further accused the Acting Director-General of the NBC, Dr Armstrong Idachaba of collusion with Mohammed to deceive Nigerians.
The Board said it denounced the Minister because one individual cannot address the challenges of the broadcast industry alone.
He said, “As a Board that supervises the affairs of the NBC, it is important that we state that we cannot fold our arms and watch the activities of the Honourable Minister which is directed at destroying the modest gains the Broadcast Industry has achieved since the setting up of the Commission and the deregulation of Broadcasting in Nigeria. While not disputing the fact that there are many challenges in the sector, the quest to find solutions cannot be totally assumed by one man. Approaches to solutions must be through wide consultations, discussions, persuasion and concession. Dictatorship tends to ruin businesses and prompt divestment—the Hon. Minister seems to have taken the option of working from an answer to the question instead of vice versa. We are in an era of democracy.”
Bilbis continued by saying that there’s an Act guiding the NBC’s operations and that the Board won’t allow Mohamed to usurp its powers or recognise the amended Code.
He said: “The Board of the NBC wishes to make it quite clear that as long as it is in place, the only NB Code that we recognise and which we shall work with in the setting of operating policies and standards for the NBC is the 6th edition of the NB Code which was launched in 2019 in Kano. Any other purported review has no Board endorsement and therefore cannot be utilised in regulating broadcasting in Nigeria.
“The danger of allowing the unilateral amendment of the NB Code to stand is that investors in the industry will lose confidence in the stability the broadcast ecosystem has enjoyed till date before the advent of the current Minister of Information. Our President and his team have worked so hard to galvanise local and foreign investment in Nigeria. Allowing obnoxious policies to take root in our Investment Culture will spell doom for creativity, enterprise, diversity and the general development of broadcasting in Nigeria.
“The very controversial portions of the purported amended Code certainly aim at destroying hard work and enterprise. It aims at taking people’s freedom and intellectual property. It aims at depriving hard-working entrepreneurs to empower new entrants who have not cut their teeth, and it aims at stifling investment. That is the main reason why stakeholder inputs are been avoided.”
Recall that Mohammed had launched the controversial 6th NBC Code on Tuesday, August 4 in Lagos.
He had said that despite the negative reactions to the amendments by some players in the broadcast industry, the government was unperturbed.
The new Code, he reiterated, had been signed, sealed and remained the regulations for broadcasting in Nigeria.
Founder of IrokoTV, Jason Njoku, was among the prominent opponents of the amendments in the 6th Broadcast Code, describing it as ridiculous.
The implementation of the controversial Code has already started as the NBC on Thursday imposed N5 million fine on a radio station, Nigeria Info, over comments made by a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Dr Obadiah Mailafia.
He had said that a serving Northern Governor is a Boko Haram patron.
Efforts to get the reaction of the Minister’s spokesperson, Segun Adeyemi failed as his phone rang out.
