Director General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Prof. Armstrong Idachaba, has opened up on how the N5 million fine for fake news was agreed by industry stakeholders in May 2019.
He said in Abuja, yesterday, that the new Code not only got stakeholders’ inputs, it was subject to a public hearing, by a presidential committee chaired by former managing director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Mr. Bayo Onanuga.
Stakeholders, he said, agreed to raise the fine from N500,000 to N5 million.
The new NBC code was borne out of an earlier directive by President Muhammadu Buhari, to the Ministry of Information and the NBC; to fashion out a lasting and immediate penalty regime against hate speech and fake news in line with international best practices.
The president had, during the inauguration of a committee to address hate speech and fake news in April 2019, handed down many terms of reference among which was “to immediately establish and publicise new sanctioning, fines and penalty regime that is in line with international best practice, promote professionalism and serve as a deterrent to erring practitioners against misconduct, especially hate speech, violence and spread of fake news.”
Prof. Idachaba also noted that the president asked the committee, which was headed by Onanuga, to ‘establish and publish a new regulation for the licensing of Web and Internet broadcasters/International broadcasters in Nigeria and to end all forms of monopoly detrimental to the actualisation of the immense potential of the broadcast industry in Nigeria.
Before arriving at its decision to slam the N5 million fine against hate speech and fake news, the committee understudied similar laws in Britain, Turkey and the European Union Regulation on online TV and radio broadcasting.
It also reviewed the National Communications Commission Act, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission Act, the Freedom of Information Act, NBC Act, Cybercrime Crime Act and the APCON Act.