Some television and radio stations across the country have been queried by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) for airing inciting contents in the herdsmen /farmers crises in Benue and other states in the north-central.
The NBC Director General Malam Is’haq Moddibo Kawu who disclosed this at a press briefing in Abuja Thursday said the unnamed stations soon may be sanctioned for the roles they played in escalating the crises.
Mal Kawu said many radio and TV stations would also be fined for their tilted reports of the crises.
“We are disturbed by the pattern of insensitive and inflammatory broadcasts emanating from some broadcast stations, especially in their coverage of national crises, like the Herdsmen/Farmer crises.
“We have observed that some stations deliberately and repeatedly air very inciting contents long after the events break.
“We have warned stations that they must follow the tenets of the Broadcasting Code. Having warned broadcasters, we shall follow up with appropriate sanctions should any station continue to violate the Broadcasting Code”, he said.
He said the NBC had already released the sanctions profile for Nigerian broadcast stations for the 4th quarter of 2017.
He said: “Many stations have been fined for hateful and inciting broadcast. It is important to remind our presenters and so-called On-Air-Personalities (OAPs), that they must be professionally detached from the stories and reports of crises phenomena.
“They are to offer platforms for Nigerians to present all the sides to issues in the news, not become the subjects of these stories, as they are wont to doing on many programs. This is especially true of political programs on broadcast stations.
As the country approaches the electioneering period, he said, radio and TV stations must do everything professional to promote democracy.
He reminded broadcasters that they have a duty to respect all extant laws related to the reportage and coverage of the electoral process.
“Don’t broadcast campaigns when the period for commencement of campaigns have not commenced”, he warned.
