By Okoh Aihe
The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has a lot of stuff in its basket at the moment. And there really will be much more as politics heats up. The other day, the Niger State Governor, Muhammed Umaru Bago, woke up one morning, perhaps on a hyperactive mode, and shut down a radio station, Badeggi Radio FM 90.1. It took a cool-headed Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, to remind him that there is a body recognized by law to take such decisions on behalf of the Federal Government. So, broadcast regulation is not a free-for-all, dear friend.
Last weekend, it was the turn of Nyesom Wike, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory and a former governor of Rivers State. Having revved up the engine of politics, perhaps more than any other acolyte of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Wike, last weekend, commissioned a new radio station, Majority FM 89.5, domiciled within the Renewed Hope Ambassadors’ office in Port Harcourt. The station features an assorted complement of eye-popping studio facilities, state-of-the-art, if you can accommodate the cliché.
The excitement was sky-high and this was illustrated by a statement from his ever-reliable Special Assistant on Public Communications and Social Media, Lere Olayinka, who in a short video on his X handle (formerly Twitter) enthused: “Rivers State Renewed Hope Ambassadors don get Radio Station on top of Tinubu’s matter.
‘’It is Majority FM 89.5 located right inside the Renewed Hope Ambassadors’ office in Port Harcourt that the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, just commissioned.’’
The station is being positioned to ventilate political messages across the state. ‘’This will take messages from all over the 6,866 units of River State. We are ready for 2027,’’ Wike said with a sense of accomplishment.
Without doubt, I can see some bales of excitement and deserved elation on the part of those involved in the process, even the ambassadors at the scene. But there is something they say about the law not being charitable in matters of ignorance.
I write from a position of peace, looking at what the law says about licensing and regulation of broadcasting in our dear nation. The National Broadcasting Commission Act CAP N11, 2004, is very clear on who should not be licensed to do any broadcast business in Nigeria.
Section 10, which highlights Persons disqualified from the grant of a licence, specifically says that: The Commission shall not grant a licence to – (a) a religious organization; or (b) a political party.
Religion and Politics cannot only be polarizing but can serve as dangerous incendiary tools to ignite opening fissures in any society. For this reason, wise jurisdictional governments ensure professional and democratic control in licensing in order to protect the state. You do not agree with me here? Let’s take a little detour and please, indulge me.
There are two books that do not live far away from my bed and I will hardly lend them to anybody to read; instead, I will buy you a copy where possible. The books are: Who Says Elephant Can’t Dance? by Louis V. Gerstner, and From Red Earth – A Rwanda Story of Healing and Forgiveness by Denise Uwimana.
While the first book centres on the great turnaround of IBM in the 90s when Gerstner (may his soul continue to enjoy peace) was chairman and CEO from 1993 – 2002, the latter is a troubling eye-witness chronicle of the Rwanda genocide from which the world has hardly recovered, even with all the development that President Paul Kagame has brought to bear on his nation. But broadcasting was in the mix of the tragedy and supplied the fuel that obliterated over a million people in a hundred days.
I knew a guy who had brought a documentary on the genocide to the film festival, FESPACO, in Burkina Faso; I couldn’t bring myself to see that film. Not many people could see it. Pure morbidity and a horrible end for over a million people.
Early April 1994, the crisis between the Hutus and the Tutsis got more complicated with the death of President Juvenal Habyarimana whose plane was shot down as he was landing in Kigali. Being a Hutu, his death was blamed on the Tutsis. That was the reason to kill. The broadcast stations encouraged the killing.
Here is an excerpt from the book: When I turned the radio to RTLM next morning, a fanatical voice was announcing an order ‘’from the top’’ that the hour had come for all ‘’snakes and cockroaches’’ to die. ‘’Look in the bushes! Look in the swamps!’’ the voice screamed.
Let me even not try to reproduce some of those other insane materials from the broadcast stations which set Rwanda on fire and on a killing spree which evidence today are stored in the Kigali Genocide Museum. That cannot be anybody’s prayer.
Those who wrote the Broadcasting Act for the nation had foreseen all these and attempted to provide safeguards for a nation that regularly flirts with danger and even drama of the absurd that could, in a moment, turn more deadly than morbidity itself.
Did NBC do anything wrong in licensing a station for Port Harcourt? Not at all. The regulator was working within its powers to issue a license. But did it issue a licence for political broadcasting? I can say the regulator couldn’t have done that when it has a law that guides all its operations.
What needs to happen? This is the time to immediately find out the nature of licence issued to the operator in Port Harcourt and whether the licence is being put to proper use. This demands an exigent response from the regulator because, heading down to the political season, many more people may want to take actions that could set the nation on edge. Broadcasting is too sensitive to be left to politics and religion. The end result may be too catastrophic for the people, including the ordinary guys who are struggling with the daily grind of life.
Why does the NBC need to act urgently? The regulator is protected by law. It is the duty of the regulator to ensure that broadcasting is democratized and licences put to proper use, in which case the regulator is also protecting the broadcast airwaves and ensuring that the people are safe and enjoy good broadcasting.
Wike himself said they are ready for 2027 and Majority FM will enable his team receive messages from 6,866 units of Rivers State. Just imagine what will happen if two other stations were to materialize in that environment, all of them talking at each other. It will be anarchy let loose upon the earth and nobody will want a descent into that world of Things Fall Apart, apologies to Chinua Achebe.
I see what happened in Rivers State as the overzealous action of a tiny group of an expanding political party who wants to occupy the frontline in canvassing the President’s advantage in a forthcoming election where the stakes may be too high for anybody to play pranks, including willfully breaking the law.
The President may want to call them to order because I do not think that he wants to rule over a country more chaotic than it is now. He is fighting a lot of battles in so many fronts. Some close associates should not make it more difficult for him with uncontrolled enthusiasm.
Really, it is the role of the regulator to stamp out brinksmanship and excesses from the airwaves and send a stern warning to any operator who wants to operate outside the Nigeria Broadcasting Code. I am sure the President has invested well in them to take the right but very tough decisions.
