NBC: Tackling impunity in the airwaves

Last week, the Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Malam Is’haq Modibbo Kawu, hosted a coterie of notable Nigerian columnists and veteran broadcasters at the Protea/ BON Hotel, Asokoro, Abuja, at a roundtable. At the occasion were members of the management team of the commission.
The objective of the meeting was to acquaint the opinion moulders with the operational activities of the commission and the challenges it is grappling with in an effort to reposition the organisation for effective service delivery.

The director-general, who until his appointment in February, last year, was a foremost columnist himself, was at his very best in the handling of the prelude to the meeting… he set the right tone for the occasion by introducing his team of directors and other key staff. And rather than asking his guests to introduce themselves, Malam Kawu showed he was still in touch with his former constituency by doing the introduction himself in a way that held the “introducees” spellbound.

Having done that, the DG proceeded to the main business of the day. And for close to one hour or so, he dissected the activities of the commission in a way that left no one in doubt that it was as a broadcaster that he found his métier, and rose to become the general manager of Radio Kwara. His long sojourn in the newspaper frontier where he was made the editor of the Daily Trust was proof of his media versatility.

His opening stanza instantly painted the picture of Hercules tasked to clean the mythical Augean Stable. He inherited an organisation that lay virtually prostrate, unable to execute its mandate effectively and professionally; a system reduced to a toothless bulldog! The nation’s airwaves which the organisation has the responsibility to regulate had become asphyxiated with broadcasting services that flouted the broadcast code with impunity.

Some of the operators are operating transmitters far beyond their categories after using their political influence to secure the nod of the presidency in times past. Also worrisome is the indiscriminate erection of high rising masts aimed at attaining wider reach without fitting them with the necessary aviation lighting system, thus endangering flight movement especially at night.  These are part of the rot the NBC is labouring to clean… to take out all the transmitters operating beyond the limit allowed by it.

Then, there were those who were under the illusion that once they had paid the initial registration fees to operate their stations, the NBC should let them be in view of the economic downturn! Consequently, the regulatory body is now owed a colossal sum of N5bn. This mountain of debts had accumulated because a number of the station owners with political clouts were of the habit of running to the Aso Presidential Villa to get the NBC to back off when they were harassed to meet their obligations to the commission.

The coming of the Buhari administration eventually killed the music of indebtedness and the commission under the leadership of Modibbo Kawu has revoked the licences of about 54 operators in recent weeks. Others who have been licensed to operate but are unable to do so have been given a grace of six months to go on air or have their licences revoked. Under the law, any licence that is not operational after 24 months of issuance automatically becomes void. This sanction will enable those who are genuinely desirous of owning broadcasting stations to come on board. Presently, there are about 703 radio and television stations in the country with the radio accounting for 444.

The parley later winded down to a question-and-answer session. One of the issues that came up was the way and manner that hate speech was allowed to fester in many national and local stations in the build-up to the 2015 general elections, the worst we have ever witnessed in the country. Rather than selling their manifestoes to the electorate, desperate political office seekers and those gunning for a re-election decided to open dirty shops from where character assassination, falsehood, blatant lies, insults, curses and even death wishes were forced down the throats of listeners and viewers alike.

Many wondered if the NBC as a regulatory body even existed!
A first lady was so consumed by rabid hatred of those in opposition that she openly canvassed for the lapidating of anyone heard asking for “change” after a legitimate buying-and-selling transaction in the market place. And the “death sentence” was given prominence in most of the television and radio stations all over the country. Such was the primitive level that campaigning degenerated into in Nigeria.

It did not only portray us as living in the Dark Age but also lowered our humanity in the eye of the international community.
The current leadership of the commission has assured that hate speech would not be allowed to colour the 2019 electioneering campaigns. However, the challenge of monitoring the numerous radio and television stations across the country and getting them to operate within the ambit of the Code is not a stroll in the park.

It will require more manpower and capacity building to achieve the goal. This is to be addressed by strategically cultivating  successors to the aging hands in the organisation. Dearth of skilled manpower is a serious barrier to the effective execution of its mandate when viewed against the wide area of coverage.
Overall, Moddibo Kawu is on course. For, judging by the way he is tackling the challenges he met on the ground (or is it in the midair?), he comes across as a technocrat who is determined to leave behind a legacy that will be difficult to match let alone surpass. I wish him well.

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