Director-General, National Broadcasting Commission, Malam Balarabe Shehu Ilelah has called on broadcasting practitioners to abide by the code of ethics guiding the operations of electronic media establishment for sanity to prevail in the country, adding inflaming passion through Radio stations would be inimical to national interest.
Speaking at a meeting with chief executives and general managers of broadcast stations held at Bristol Palace Hotel in Kano, Monday, Ilelah stated that when the broadcast industry was deregulated in August 24, 1992, it was a public media dominated environment, adding that people are living witnesses to how the narrative is changing towards a dominant private ownership, courtesy of liberalisation airwaves.
According to him, as the country records increase in the number of broadcast stations, people have continued to witness a surge in social disorders around the country from the lingering Boko Haram crisis in the North-east, banditry and kidnappings in virtually all parts of the country, secessionists agenda in the South and youths restiveness which often metamorphosed to crimes and conflict.
He said” as professional broadcasters, responsibility is thrust on us to cautiously weigh the impact of our content on the people in times of crisis and emergencies, public interest must be the central focus it is not a time of sensational reportage. let us be wary of people who are hell bent on destabilizing the peace of the country”.
“I must say that the Commission is doing everything within its power to completely transit Nigeria to digital terrestrial broadcasting. We have so far licensed 140 new digital Terrestrial Television stations at national, regional, and local levels in the past three years and counting,” he added.
“At this juncture, I would like to inform you that from January 2022, NBC would be self funding at the moment, it is drawing its salaries and other funding from the federal budget. Therefore, the Commission deems it necessary to call on licensees to off-set their financial obligations, especially license fee and 2.5% Commission on turnover,” he stressed.
In her goodwill message, the national chairperson, Broadcasting Organisation Of Nigeria (BON), Hajiya Saa Ibrahim, lamented that the operations of social media and the horrendous atrocities they have been committing in the name of breaking news syndrome has , done more harm than good at the expense of conventional media stressing that unless urgent steps were taken to clear the rot, the operations of conventional media would be adversely affected.
