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Government owned Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), and three private broadcast stations: Television Continental (TVC) , Channels TV, and African Independent Television (AIT) have been sanctioned for allowing the airing of hate speeches by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Director General of National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Malam Is’haq Modibbo Kawu has said in Abuja yesterday during a media engagement.
Kawu said the stations breached provisions of the national broadcasting code and have been formally notified of the NBC’s decision to apply the statutory sanctions.
While counseling the media against being used as tools for propagation of hate and divisions, the NBC’s boss said broadcast stations where under obligation not to fall foul of the broadcast code which forbids hate and dangerous speech and spell out consequences for stations that err.
“Broadcasters have a huge responsibility of protecting and guiding our democracy, and we have a very huge responsibility of ensuring that we don’t promote violence or anything that can lead to it,” said Kawu adding: “Live broadcasts must be decent, truthful, fair and balanced, while broadcast stations will be held responsible for utterances of politicians on their stations, which contravenes the provisions of the National Broadcasting code.”
He warned broadcast stations against airing sponsored political messages notably those of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC) that are coloured in hate.
“We have discovered that despite our repeated warnings some broadcast stations still allow politicians to let out hate speeches which are capable of throwing this country into crisis.
“We have prepared sanctions and the letters to this effect will be delivered to them soonest. These broadcast stations include NTA, AIT, Channels, TVC and some other radio stations,” said Kawu.
