By Newsie Events Media:
The National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, has served a query letter to Channels Television over an interview it granted Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State.
Ortom, who was a guest on Sunrise Daily on Tuesday, berated President Buhari for his decision to to review grazing reserves across the country, which he described as unconstitutional. The governor said, “I’m disappointed with the presidency. One would expect that we’re in a democratic governance and the presidency would have understood this.”
“I think Mr President was misquoted or he did it out of error. He should come out to apologise to Nigerians. There is no basis whatsoever for this to be going on when we have the Constitution.”
The Benue Governor also accused Buhari of trying to ‘fulanise’ Nigeria.
However, In a letter signed by Balarabe Ilelah, NBC director-general, and dated August 24, the NBC said Channels TV violated six of its codes during the broadcast of the interview.
The NBC said the comments of the governor were “divisive, inciting and unfair”, adding that Channels TV anchors did not “thoroughly interrogate” Ortom.
The letter read; The National Broadcasting Commission monitored the broadcast of your programme Sunrise Daily between 7am and 9am on Tuesday August 24, 2021.
The programme which had as guest the Executive Governor of Benue State, Governor Samuel Ortom was observed to contain inciting, divisive and unfair comments which were not thoroughly interrogated by the anchors. These negate the following provisions of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code;
Section 1.10.4: “The Broadcaster shall ensure that its Presenter…..shall handle it with professionalism and sound judgment to ensure that it does not loose focus or lead to unfair treatment or institution”
Section 3.1.1: “No broadcast shall encourage or incite to crime, lead to public disorder or hate, be repugnant to public feelings or contain offensive reference or organization alive or dead…”
Section 3.3.1(b): “the broadcaster shall ensure that all sides to any issue of public interest are equitably presented for fairness and balance”
Section 3.3.1(e): “the broadcaster shall not treat any individual or organization in an unjust or unfair manner”
Section 3.11.1(a): “the broadcaster shall ensure that language….likely to encourage or incite to crime or lead to disorder is not broadcast”.
Section 3.12.2: “the broadcaster shall not transmit a program that incites or likely to incite to violence among the populace, causing mass panic, political and social upheaval, security breach and general social disorder”
Consequently, Channels Television is required to explain why appropriate sanctions should not be applied for these infractions of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code. Your response should reach the Commission within 24 hours of receipt of this letter.
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