The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) on Monday suspended Channels Television and slammed a fine of N5 million on the TV station for interviewing a leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
The NBC, in a letter signed by its acting Director General, Prof. Armstrong Idachaba, said statements made during an interview granted to the IPOB leader during Channels’ 7pm live broadcast programme of Sunday, April 25, 2021, contravened the broadcast code.
It accused the TV station of allowing the IPOB leader to make secessionist and inciting declarations on air without being cautioned or reprimanded by the station.
The commission also alleged that the station allowed the guest speaker to make derogatory and misleading statements about the Nigerian Army, despite being proscribed by a court of law.
The statement read in part, “In the programme, a so called new leader of IPOB made several secessionist and inciting declarations on air without caution or reprimand by your station. He also made derogatory, false and misleading statements about the Nigerian Army.
“The programme was very clearly in violation of the provisions of the code, and extant provisions of the code, and extant provisions of the broadcasting act. refer Sections 3.11.1(b) and 5.43 of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code which state that -The Broadcaster shall ensure that no programme contains anything which amounts to subversion of constituted authority or compromises the unity or corporate existence of Nigeria as a sovereign state.”
