NBC’s Game Of Garrote -By Kene Obiezu

The Nigeria Broadcasting Commission does not exactly draw envious glances at the moment. Flailing under a government that continues to fail  at proactive and assertive leadership, the regulatory agency continues to show that it is nothing more than an attack dog that only waits for the snapping of its master`s fingers to attack.

 A perverse pattern

  As Nigeria continues to recede deeper into the clutches of anarchy, insecurity and poverty, many Nigerians have had cause to bemoan their fate in a country that has quickly gone from promise to perdition.

 Nigerian stay in their houses and  are attacked with many killed or abducted. When Nigerians hit the roads, the story is the same. When Nigerians dare to go about their normal lives, they are not spared the wrath of non-state actors who have grown so emboldened by their newfound capabilities and  the weakness of the Nigerian state that they have now set their sights on the president of the Giant of Africa and its capital city.

While these anomalies have continued, the Nigerian media has under what are far from ideal conditions  sought to uphold its constitutional role of informing Nigerians and holding  those in power to account.

 However, the energy which the media is bringing to its duties  in a country where governance is marked by inertia is obviously a source of great  concern to  some of those who should take responsibility for the situation of things in Nigeria.

 Their response has been to clamp down using subtle but undeniable subversive methods, all to ensure that the media is  not at its full strength.

While it is the social media that has become the explosive nightmare of the powers  that be in Nigeria, the mainstream media continues to be recognised as a formidable threat to those who want to act with impunity  and get away.

  A sledgehammer for flies

 It has not even been a month since the National Broadcasting Commission fined a couple of TV stations in the country a hefty sum of five million naira each for what it described as a breach of the Nigeria Broadcast Code which was amended in 2020 amidst cries that it was draconian and meant to silence the media.

 On Thursday, August 18,2022, the NBC announced that it was revoking the  licenses of about  52  radio and television stations with, with many more to come. It said the move  was a reaction to their failure to  renew their licenses amounting to 2.6 billion naira.

 The NBC may  huff and puff to appear that it is taking its statutory responsibilities most seriously, but what Nigerians see is a garotte taken to the throat of the media in Nigeria.

Of course, it has long been expected. As leadership has continued to fail, churning out the confusion  that has plunged millions of Nigerians into  desperate situations of life and death, the media in  Nigeria has continued to bear unflinching witness to  what life has become in Nigeria. Of course, this was never going to sit well with those who would paint the outside of tombs in the brightest of colours while the insides disintegrate with decay.

 Ahead of the 2023 general elections, and with the APC-led government having so miserably failed at all levels, Nigerians must brace for more shocks from some otherwise do-nothing government agencies who are only waking up from their slumber because higher  interests have been threatened.

The Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives which has been uncovering shocking misuse of public funds by some government agencies and ministries may want to look closely at the activities of the NBC, for as is so often the case in Nigeria, those who would hold others to account are themselves not up to scratch.

 For the media in Nigeria, the voice it gives those silenced by state and non-state actors must provide the reason it must keep going.

  Kene Obiezu,

Twitter: kenobiezu