By Okoh Aihe
There is a saying among my people that if you want to lace garri with sand for a visually impaired, you do it with some tact and wisdom instead of a single desperate act that will cause some stir. This is plainly parabolic, which should be measured in the lesson it teaches, instead of being viewed as an act of wickedness.
But you will soon be attracted to my little drift. There were many stories flying around last week, one of which was a case going against the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) at the Appeal Court. With all the things happening, some good and some really very bad, that was the one that hit me in the face.
Trying to sort out the strands of that case was what provoked my little parable in the opening line. A regulatory act that stirred so much dust at a time that it became the responsibility of the courts to call the various parties to order. For the regulator, it is a part not always recommended but which sometimes becomes a necessary evil as the outcome can create antecedents and help strengthen regulatory processes.
But creating regulatory antecedents can lead to some hurt. The story dates back to March 1, 2019, when the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) fined a whopping 45 broadcast stations N500,000 each for violating the Nigeria Broadcasting Code which act was consequent upon happenings during the elections. Contents of the Broadcast Act and the Code empowers the broadcast regulator to take such actions.
At this particular time, there was outrage. People expected the regulator to be able to take certain actions but not in such a comprehensive manner as to give the similitude of muzzling the media. Democracy was already challenged, even as it is now, blanketing the media would seem an over-reach and a retreat to the dark ages around which the nation continued to dance.
The Media Rights Agenda went to the court to contest the fine for the sake of the freedom of the media which must not be subjected to the wickedness of hidden hands.
May 10, 2023, Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court gave a perpetual injunction stopping the NBC from imposing fines henceforth, saying the NBC “is neither a court nor a judicial tribunal to make pronouncements on guilt of broadcast stations, notwithstanding what NBC code says.” The fines were thus nullified.
This is not a good place for any regulator to find itself. The NBC went to the Appeal Court in Abuja pleading reasons why such judgment should be set aside. The result came on Thursday last week when Justice Oyebiola Oyewumi, on behalf of a three-member panel, affirmed the position of the Federal High court while dismissing the appeal for being incompetent and lacking merit.
If you are not a lawyer you have to be guided in the way you comment on some of these issues, but I guess it doesn’t hurt playing your role as a journalist and simply just report.
Without pretending to be abreast with legal forensics, permit me to ask, what happens to the provisions of the National Broadcasting Commission Act 2004 and the Nigeria Broadcasting Code which empower the NBC to take some decisions that can put broadcasters in check?
Section 2 (g) credits the NBC with the power to establish and disseminate a national broadcasting code and setting standards with regard to the contents and quality of materials for broadcast.
Here is the other relevant section that may interest us: determining and applying sanctions including revocation of licences of defaulting stations which do not operate in accordance with the broadcast code and in the public interest (Section 2 (n).
Section 21 is also very relevant to our discourse, and it says: Any station which contravenes the provisions of the National broadcasting Code or any other order of the commission shall be liable to the sanctions prescribed in The Code.
The sanctions are domiciled in Chapter Fifteen of the Code. Sanctions are graded in Classes as follows: A, B and C, and penalties are apportioned in the following manner – Light …N250,000 to N500,000; Heavy …N2m to N10m; and Severe … N20m and above.
It would seem that everything is written in black and white as the cliche would have it. Meaning that those who offer to play in the industry would understand the rules of the game, like a football match or even athletics. However, this is more than a game. This is reality where a little twist of fact could impact life in ways too complex to contemplate. So, the NBC must build the proficiency and boldness to superintend the industry.
The little problem however, is that the industry had changed so much since the coming of APC in 2015. There was no doubt that the government wanted to be in charge of everything, including every little decision in the ministries and parastatals. But nobody wrestled authority with them, except that things should be done decently and according to the law. The people did not ask for more.
This is where this material started, about the visually challenged, garri and sand. Taking decisions without caring that, at some point, even the most helpless will have to react with his back to the wall. The nation at this time endured an ignoble period of arbitrariness and executive excesses, a period that parastatals suffered regulatory capture.
Every action of the government was suspected. There were those who genuinely believed that the decision to fine 45 broadcast stations was taken beyond and above the regulator by people who sought every little opportunity to put the media in chains and protect a government that was abysmally unpopular.
The position of Media Rights Agenda was very clear, that the NBC cannot be the accuser, the investigator and the judge on matters. Now it has secured successive victories not only for itself and the broadcast stations but for every Nigerian who believes in free speech and free media.
In this column, we wrote on May 17, 2023, “While regulatory fervency will be impaired for some time, it will be an act of courage for the NBC to carry out some self introspection and cure itself of what it has always been accused of: sitting as judge in its cases and being intolerant of, and impervious to even good ideas from the industry. It makes common sense for institutions to strive to preserve their institutional culture instead of exposing them to the avarice and manipulations by politicians whose tenure moves faster than quick sand. There is something about the culture of the NBC that must be preserved.’’
I am a pacifist. Even now I still believe in my 2023 submission although the ball seems to be spinning far away from the regulator. Mistakes have been made and decisions have been taken under influences that were less than professional. Each loss in court diminishes the regulator which should not be allowed to remain in a castrated position.
The NCC has often been accused of not following its processes in measuring out fines to broadcast operators. It is no act of weakness to weigh the veracity of such statements and do things differently, decently and in order. The wheels of justice, they say, grind slowly. The NBC should rescue itself from such a slow grind by doing things differently and following its rule books.
