Jos radio station drags NBC to court over continuous shut down

A Jos-based radio station; Jay FM 101.9 which was shut down in March by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) over allegations that it aired inciting programmes during the presidential and National Assembly elections has dragged the commission before a Federal High Court in Jos.

The radio station in its originating summons as JODAJ Global Communications against the NBC and its Zonal Director for Plateau, Benue and Bauchi, Dr. Igomu Onoja, is seeking an order of mandatory injunction to compel the respondents to immediately re-open the station and for the court to direct the NBC to pay Jay FM the sum of N500 million as general and exemplary damages.

The station is also seeking an order of perpetual injunction restraining the respondents or their agents from shutting down the operations of the station or interfering or trespassing into the premises of the station in Jos as well as an order setting aside the levy imposed by the respondents on the station.

Daily Trust gathered that the station, said to be owned by a close associate of the former Governor of the state, Jonah David Jang was in March issued with a directive by the NBC to go off-air till further notice. The Managing Director of Jay FM, Clinton Garuba had condemned the action saying the station had complied with an earlier sanctions by NBC and wondered why it was being targeted for a shut down.

Jay FM was one of the 45 stations sanctioned by the NBC in March for alleged ethical infractions in relation to the 2019 general elections. Director-General of the NBC, Malam Is’haq Modibbo Kawu had then stated that the erring stations had violated provisions of the Nigerian Broadcasting Code, and were fined N500, 000 each.

Garuba who is also the CEO of the station yesterday stated that the management of Jay FM had been invited for a meeting at the NBC headquarters in Abuja on 18th March where the commission made a commitment to reopen the station between 18th and 23rd March. He stated however that information available to management indicated that; “powers that be in the presidency used by the powers in Plateau State insisted that the Jay FM Jos must remain shut down.”

“While it is never our intention, style, or preoccupation to be confrontational with our regulators, we have arrived at a crossroad, where we are constrained and left with no option but to seek legal redress in a court of law which is the final and only hope of the downtrodden and persecuted masses of our country, in the expectation that we would find justice there where the NBC and its manipulators have denied us,” he stated.