MINNA: The Niger State Broadcasting Corporation ( Radio Niger) is on the verge of having its licence revoked by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC).
The station is among the 51 broadcast stations that have failed to pay its renewal broadcasting fee across the country.
Radio Niger is a broadcast media station owned by the Niger State government.
According to NBC, the licenses were revoked due to an N2.6 billion owed by the affected stations since 2015.
“In May 2022, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) published in the Nations Dailies, the list of licensees that are indebted to the commission and granted them two weeks to renew their licenses and pay their debts or consider their licenses revoked, frequencies withdrew, and the withdrawn frequencies reassigned to others who are ready to abide by the requirements,” a statement released by the NBC on Friday said.
In another statement released on Friday, NBC, which had earlier asked the stations to cease operations within 24 hours, announced that it was extending the date to Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2022.
According to the Director-General of NBC, Malam Balarabe Ilelah, the extension follows an appeal by the affected broadcast stations, relevant stakeholders, public-spirited individuals, and organizations.
Should the Niger State Government fail to pay its debts, the Commission has threatened to reassign its frequency “to others who are ready to abide by the requirements”.
The International Press Centre (IPC) in Lagos-Nigeria has decried the arbitrary approach of NBC in revoking the licenses of alleged debtor broadcast stations.
IPC, in a press release, stated that the sweeping revocation confirms its concern that NBC exercises its powers arbitrarily without recourse to the public interest and called on NBC to ensure that it exhausts engagement channels before wielding a stick that may not only lead to thousands of job losses but also shrink the information dissemination space.
“It also confirms our worry that NBC continuously constitutes itself to the accuser, the prosecutor and the judge in its own case. In this particular instance, NBC has not only ordered the revocation of licenses of many TV and Radio stations, but it has also gone further to usurp the authority of the President and Commander-In-Chief and the National Assembly by directing security agents to move in and effect its order.
“NBC should stop acting as a revenue generating agency that is unconcerned about the business environment of broadcast stations. Nothing in its mandate says that it cannot contribute to the sustainability of broadcast stations that are having their own share of the economic crisis plaguing the Nation.”
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