From Adamawa, a redeeming opportunity for NBC

It is difficult to forecast a closure to the sustained drama happening in Nigeria. In the manner of all beautiful or bizarre shows, before one scene comes to an end, the other is loading with more complicated suspense and details beyond the imagination of any script writer. Or tell me, how would you ever put the script of the Adamawa governorship election together except from a warped mind with infinite capacity for evil?

The story is in the public domain. A supplementary election was held. While the process was going through some challenges as it headed towards a resolution, a usurper in the name of Hudu Yunusa, who is the Regional Electoral Commissioner, flanked by full security apparatus, announced the candidate of the All Progress Congress (APC), Aishatu Dahiru, popularly called Binani, as winner. The result was scribbled on a crumpled paper, probably torn from one of his children’s notebooks.

Bedlam is a light word to be used under the circumstance. Perhaps I should use a more high sounding word, hugger-mugger. A nation already traumatised by INEC’s failure to conduct a credible and acceptable election, was fearing for the worst. NTA that has failed to pursue the cause of modern broadcasting, got a scoop, an exclusive, as it was on the other side of town, taking a live acceptance speech of the winner.

Binani hailed the Adamawa people for making political history by electing the first female governor in our dear country, saying this will encourage the female folks in Nigeria and across the continent.

Thankfully, INEC cut short the pipe dream and saved the nation from such elevated ignominy and perfidy. The REC was wrong to usurp the functions of the Returning Officer, it said. The election body followed the process through and declared the right winner, proven with figures, PDP’s Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, who is being returned to office.

However, the role of the NTA in this drama of the absurd, has exposed the broadcast regulator, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), to a new level of scrutiny, with a number of people asking, why the regulator has not been so fast in sanctioning the NTA as it has done recently, dishing out fines to broadcasters seemingly trapped on the wrong side of the law.

NTA is the public broadcaster funded with tax payers’ money. In the days of yore, it prided itself as the biggest network in Africa, chose when to open daily broadcast, whose voice should be heard and whose face should be seen. NTA was a de facto regulator, to the extent that when broadcasting was deregulated in 1992, its officials refused to accept the status of the NBC established by Decree 38, now an Act of Parliament, National Broadcasting Commission Act CAP N11, Laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 2004.

Broadcast writers have, in the past, encouraged the regulator to rein in the NTA by issuing it with a broadcast license, even if symbolically, without paying the license fee; this writer is not aware that this has been done. So, NTA remains a failed eagle unto itself, living in expired glory whose currency has been fully appropriated by the razzle dazzle of modern day broadcasters. NTA’s primary audience remains the government whose purpose it serves.

Looking at the antecedents of NTA, the question in the wind is, was NTA a part of the big script put together to throw Nigeria into confusion starting from Adamawa? Answers will come from the ongoing investigations but human rights lawyer and activist, Femi Falana (SAN), has asked for the scrutiny of Binani as well in the entire saga.

For the sins of NTA, the NBC is being pilloried by quite a number of people who want to see justice served democratically instead of piecemeal dispensation of punishment to perceived enemies. And they have a point.

In the past, or let’s circumscribe it to the election period, several stations, including AIT, Channels, Arise TV, TVC and a host of others, have been sanctioned for “severe infractions.” And lately, Channels got another hit because of an interview with Datti Baba Ahmed, Vice Presidential candidate of the Labour Party.

In capturing the litany of fines on broadcasters, the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON)wrote in their letter to the NBC: “We dare say that imposition of fines on Channels Television and many other cases in the recent past are not only arbitrary but smacks of high handedness which is already suffocating the broadcast media in the country.”

In the heat of this protestation, why are people suggesting another punishment for one of the BON members, NTA?

The answer I get is very straight forward. The offence is grave because NTA was part of an intricate civilian cum political coup to cause mayhem in the country, and should therefore not be let off easily.

I have also asked, will NBC sanction NTA? The answer I get is ludicrous. What do you think? they retorted.

What do I think? Let me paint a little picture that may look very ordinary but harbours some truth. The NBC is the regulator of the entire broadcast industry. However, both the NBC and the NTA belong to the Ministry of Information and Culture superintended by Alhaji Lai Mohammed. If you look at the history of sanctions since the coming of Mohammed as minister , nearly every sanction, except the one on TVC, carries his imprimatur. This writer is aware that the minister is still railing at that particular sanction on TVC.

Under the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, some agencies were blanketed or captured by their supervising ministers. The NBC is one of those agencies. It looks unimaginable to me that the minister would sanction the NTA irrespective of its poor performance at Adamawa and the extensive outrage and condemnation such performance attracted from a concerned populace.

However, I expect something to shift as the NBC has to begin a recalibration of its self respect, relevance and worth as the life of this administration ebbs out. It has to be a long way back to the top which perhaps will begin with how it handles the NTA “severe infraction,” if I am permitted to borrow that phrase from its sanction letters.

At the time of the drama in Adamawa, some top management members of the Commission were attending the National Association of Broadcasters Conference (NAB) in Las Vegas in the United States. No. It wasn’t a jamboree. NAB is home to the latest broadcast equipment exhibition and about the biggest broadcast conference in the world. Any regulator worth its salt must attend NAB annually to refresh and just learn. I am very excited that in spite of being in very dire straits in recent years, the NBC was still able to fund some of its staff to attend.

But I welcome them back home. There is a job to be done. Nigerians expect to hear from the NBC and perhaps be comforted by the kind of decision it will take concerning the NTA. They want to see some similitude of action to determine whether the NBC is ready for the next phase of its journey which begins in just over a month.