(MRA/IFEX) – Nigeria’s broadcast regulatory authority, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), has lifted the restrictions, including a partial shut down, which it imposed on a privately-owned radio station, Freedom Radio, on 28 March 2006 for its alleged violation of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code. Mr. Farouk Dalhatu, executive director of the station, which is based in […]
(MRA/IFEX) – Nigeria’s broadcast regulatory authority, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), has lifted the restrictions, including a partial shut down, which it imposed on a privately-owned radio station, Freedom Radio, on 28 March 2006 for its alleged violation of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code.
Mr. Farouk Dalhatu, executive director of the station, which is based in Kano in northwestern Nigeria, said the station had received a letter from the NBC asking it to resume normal broadcasting operations.
On 28 March, the NBC banned the station from broadcasting between 5:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. daily, and ordered it to pay the sum of N200,000 (approx.US$1,600) within 48 hours. The station was also banned from broadcasting any political programmes, including its programmes “Special programme”, “Kowa ya tuna bara”, “Kowane Gauta” and “Kowane Tsuntsu”.
NBC’s director-general, Dr. Silas Babajiya Yisa, accused the station of failing to comply with political broadcast regulations in the Nigeria Broadcasting Code, and of violating regulations on talk show programming because guests and callers on its talk show programmes were “making unguarded comments that violate provisions of the NBC Code, always tending to overheat the polity.”
But Dalhatu said the NBC’s letter to the station asking it to resume normal broadcasting operations did not indicate any conditions under which it is now to operate.
He insisted that the NBC’s allegations against the station, which resulted in the restrictions, were unfounded and that the closure was politically motivated.
Dalhatu said that, although the station did not pay the fine imposed on it by the NBC, it is still calculating the losses it incurred as a result of the restrictions.
