NBC board disagrees with minister over broadcast code

…Amendment was done to break monopoly, acting DG says

Many Nigerians were not surprised recently when the board of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) accused the Minister of Information who oversees the commission’s activities of unilaterally reviewing the broadcasting code.

The raging controversy over the amendment of the Sixth Edition of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code has not abated as the board of NBC is insisting that the Minister of Information and Cultural Orientation, Lai Mohammed, and the management of the commission erred in reviewing the code.

The board’s Chairman, Malam Ikra Aliyu Bilbis, at a press conference in Abuja recently, told journalists that the purported amendment of the sixth edition of the broadcasting code at the behest of Mohammed was illegal.

Malam Bilbis said the amendment had created uproar in the industry which was threatening to destroy investments and lead to job losses.

He said the sixth edition of the code was presented to the public in 2019 at a ceremony in Kano which attracted a broad section of stakeholders, but that some people only reviewed it for their selfish aims.

Bilbis said, “President Muhammadu Buhari is a stickler for due process and he always insists on organisations doing the right thing. The honourable minister’s version of the revised broadcasting code does not meet any known criteria of due process and inclusiveness of stakeholders.”

He further said it was not true as insinuated by the acting Director General (DG) of NBC that the board endorsed the amendments thereby culminating in its “public presentation” on March 26, 2020, in Lagos.

Bilbis explained that, “Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, you may all recall that by March 26, 2020, the Federal Government had already announced the COVID-19 lockdown of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Lagos and Ogun states. It was, therefore, not a sincere effort to present such an important ‘review document’ which affects people’s investments and livelihoods under such situation.”

He said the attendant public outcry over the purported review of some sensitive sections of the code compelled the board of the NBC to institute a process through which stakeholders could express opinions and harmonise their feelings with what the “minister unilaterally created.”

The board, according to him, convened a meeting which included the acting DG in attendance, adding that the unanimous decision was to issue a press release inviting inputs from stakeholders.

He said there were very serious and disturbing amendments which had been greeted with criticisms and threats of litigation, and that, “The danger of allowing the unilateral amendment of the code to stand is that investors in the industry will lose confidence in the stability the broadcast ecosystem has enjoyed till date before the advent of the current Minister of Information.”

The disagreement between the NBC board and its management became known to the public when the board, on Friday, June 26, placed advertisements in some national newspapers calling on aggrieved stakeholders in the broadcasting and entertainment industries to submit position papers on the amended code.

But the NBC in another advert signed by its acting DG on Monday, June 29, asked Nigerians to disregard the earlier one by its board.

However, speaking with Daily Trust on Sunday in Abuja, Malam Bilbis said it was wrong for the NBC top management staff to say the advert placed by the board had no official endorsement of the commission.

Malam Bilbis said there had never been a time in the history, tradition and conventions of the NBC when a presidential approval was needed for a review of the broadcasting code, adding that there had never been a time when a minister or the ministry would intervene in the code’s review.

Therefore, he said he wondered why top management of NBC would choose not to listen to stakeholders who were shut out during the amendment, and called on the stakeholders to keep submitting their position papers on the amended code.

The Chairman of the Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON), Mr. Tony Okoroji, described as “unenforceable” some of the provisions in the code.

Mr. Okoroji tweeted that, “I understand the good intent of the new NBC Broadcast Code, but some of the provisions are unworkable; some even unconstitutional. The commission cannot overreach its powers and assume the powers of the National Assembly. The code needs to be revisited.”

Also, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of irokotv, Jason Njoku, stated that amendments in the code that sought to limit exclusivity abridged the rights of copyright owners and had the potential to discourage investment in the sector.

Many other players in the broadcast industry have expressed disapproval of the code; which is viewed as an assault on their copyright rights, but speaking with Daily Trust on Sunday, the NBC acting DG, Mr. Amstrong Idachaba, said the commission “carried all the stakeholders along during the amendment.’’

Mr. Idachaba alleged that a stakeholder – a foreign company – was a behind the campaign against the amended sixth edition of the code; explaining that the company was kicking against the code because it erroneously believed that it would weaken its monopoly and bring Nigerian companies up to the same level with it.

He further said, “This is not so; rather, it would even give them more reach and more money. This is because by reaching more Nigerians through sharing  of contents with local stations, more advertisers will advertise and you even get additional money from the contents you shared with the local stations.’’

Mr. Idachaba added that the code was amended to also protect the local broadcasting stations from collapsing.

FM station first victim of amended code

A Lagos-based FM station, Nigeria Info 99.3, became the first victim of the amended code, as the NBC fined it N5m for airing the “inciting views” of a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Dr. Mailafia Obadiah.

In a statement, NBC said the fine was expected to serve as a deterrent to all other broadcast stations in Nigeria which were quick to provide platform for subversive rhetoric and the exposition of spurious and unverifiable claims.

The statement read in part, “The commission wishes to put it on record that it will not hesitate to suspend the broadcast licence of broadcast stations that continue to breach the code.

“Stations are, by this statement, admonished to desist forthwith, from airing unwholesome content or be ready to face appropriate sanctions.’’

A United Kingdom (UK)-based communication consultant, Dr. Opeyemi Erinfolami, described the provision on exclusivity in the new National Broadcasting Code as a product of ignorance.

Dr. Erinfolami, who made his views known in a series of tweets, said what the NBC had done was akin to plucking a regulatory provision from the air.

Speaking on the provisions of the code affecting the broadcast of foreign football matches, which mandated rights holders to sub-license to other broadcasters, the communication expert explained that the drafters of the code had shown unfamiliarity with how the broadcast rights to England’s Premier League (PL) were bought and sold.

He explained that, “Those provisions, in the main, are targeted at PL broadcast rights because the league is popular in Nigeria, and they are based on poor understanding of the rights acquisition process. The NBC cannot control rights it didn’t pay for. It can only determine how what it paid for is used; not what others have.”

The release of the proposed amendment to the code in May attracted multidimensional criticism, with investors in local content production, advertising industry figures and writers describing it as a tyrannical regulatory framework, with  Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, describing it as economic sabotage.

The criticisms have refused to abate, as a former DG of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Professor Tony Iredia, accused the information minister of unilaterally directing the operations of NBC.

Particularly irksome to Iredia and many others is the hate speech provision in the code. The provision prescribes a fine of N5m for defaulters, which made him to argue that the parameters of hate speech had not been neatly spelt out; saying the portion on hate speech was open to abuse.

Why we increased fine for hate speech to N5m – Lai

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has said the NBC increased the fine for hate speech from N500,000 to N5m to serve as a deterrent to unrepentant offenders.

Mohammed disclosed this at the unveiling of the amendment to the sixth edition of the code in Lagos recently.

The minister said the amendment was necessitated by a presidential directive in the wake of the 2019 general elections for an inquiry into the regulatory role of NBC, as well as the conduct of the various broadcast stations before, during and after the elections.

He explained that, “In the build up to the 2019 elections, politicians who approached broadcast houses to air offensive materials were turned down because of the fear of being fined by NBC, so the politicians doubled the fees to accommodate the fine.

“So even with the new rate of N5m, if you pay and continue to accommodate hate speech, we will have no choice but to withdraw your licence.”

He further said the amendment was mostly in the areas of political broadcasting, local content, coverage of emergencies, advertising and anti-competitive behaviour.

Speaking on the provisions on exclusivity and monopoly, the minister explained that the anti-trust provision would boost local content and local industry due to laws prohibiting exclusive use of rights by broadcasters who intended to create monopolies and hold the entire market to themselves; as well as encourage open access to premium content.