The National Broadcasting Commission NBC,is the regulatory body of all broadcast medium whose operational base falls within the space of Nigeria as a continent.
It also has the temerity to monitor advertising agencies as well as their activities,so as detach the populace from contents regarded as inimical to the society.
In it’s desire to act within the vision and mission of the organisation,the broadcast code is strictly being applied as the code of conduct in running the day to day affairs of the agency towards the management of broadcast organisations.
In a democratic dispensation were rights and priviledges are adequately protected,it goes beyond the protection through human rights of individuals or groups,but the activities their in particularly not to trample on the rights of others.
Therefore the NBC in the spirit of democratic practices and dispensation, do not unilaterally carry out decisions that negates the practice of broadcast medium, through outright sanctions and punishment.
In the year under review, it explored all avenues that will guarantee a virile practice for broadcast organisations even though,some err either in the process or deliberately.
The NBC had embarked on seminars, workshops, talkshops, symposiums to interface with various medium,so as to caution on the modus operandi,even though, in a civil environment devoid of confrontation or capable of overheating the polity and creating uneasy calm in the country.
This interface had become a routine exercise,so as to serve as a precautionary measure to some broadcast stations whose intentions is to satisfy either the listening public or their employers in the course of carrying out their jobs.
With the statutory obligation of monitoring and in some instances controlling the activities of this various organisations,it is not only saddled with dolling out sanctions,but the temerity to reprimand,through various levels of warning are clearly spelt out to further regulate it’s activities.
All these anomaly in the broadcast medium are being streamlined, through a clearly spelt out procedures in tandem with the spirit of democratic environment.
This is also done through quarterly assessment of all broadcast media organisation across the country, with various degrees of infractions in the course of their airings of programs,news and products,a departure from total clampdown as obtainable in the old order.
The unambiguous reports in each quater under the current Management of Professor Armstrong Aduku Idachaba, is clearly in line with the broadcast code of the National Broadcasting Commission NBC.
According to the Commission,its offences ranges from breach on advertisements, warnings, cautions, obscenity, technical offences, unprofessionalism, unverified claims, political breaches and hate speech.
Without reservation and with a clearly spelt out procedures, through a well thought out monitoring unit,that carried out it’s activities on weekly and monthly basis,that covered all the broadcast stations and it’s contents in Nigeria.
This decision is a clear justification that the new commission does not embark or indulge in a haphazard decisions, but according to the lay down procedures and the provision of the broadcast code.
In arriving at it’s various decisions,there are various and clearly spelt out sanctions against each medium involved in any infractions without fear or favour,as well as represents the overall interest of the country at large.
So it is not out of place,to say the least, by passing a vote of good perfomance on the current leadership, that inspite of asymmetrical claims to human rights freedom in Nigeria,the NBC is still towing the line of modest monitoring and sanctions on broadcast organisations.
Abubakar Yusuf Writes
for OBSERVERS TIMES