President Muhammadu Buhari has appointed Mr. Balarabe Shehu Ilelah, as the Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC).
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, announced the appointment in a statement issued in Abuja on Friday.
He said Mr. Ilelah’s appointment is for a tenure of five years in the first instance.
Ilelah, who ran for Bauchi South Senatorial seat under the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2019, has lived in the Soviet Union for years with his wife and children before moving to China.
He grew up in Bauchi, attended Kobi primary school, Bauchi as well as Junior Secondary School Misau. A graduate of Bayero University Kano, Balarabe Ilelah had worked with NTA Bauchi before leaving Nigeria for the then Soviet Union as journalist.
Dateline Nigeria reports that Professor Aduku Armstrong Augustine Idachaba, NBC’s Director, Broadcast Policy and Research, had been acting as the DG of the commission since the suspension of Mallam Is’haq Modibbo Kawu in February 2020.
Kawu is facing trial for allegedly paying N2. 5bn seed grant to Pinnacle Communications Limited, one of the signal distributors for the Digital Switch-over projects, in contravention of the Federal Government’s White Paper on switch-over from analogue to digital broadcasting.