The Director-General of the National Broadcasting
Commission, Mallam Balarabe Ilelah, disclosed this on Thursday.
He also disclosed that 302 broadcast stations breached NBC
code in the last two years.
Ilelah called on broadcasters to continue to abide by the
NBC Act, the Nigeria Broadcasting Code, the Electoral Act and other extant law
that guide media operation to ensure that the general elections are free, fair
and credible.
The NBC said it had deployed all the technical and
operational facilities for the monitoring of the elections.
The commission added that a central monitoring committee had
been constituted to provide rapid response to unethical broadcasts and
violations on election days.
Ilelah spoke at a media parley where he presented his
scorecard in the past two years in office.
He took over after the removal of his predecessor, Prof.
Armstrong Idachaba.
Ilelah said the approval of the 67 broadcast licences
would bring to a total of 473 licences
granted by the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).
Speaking on his scorecard, the NBC DG said he had
repositioned the commission and made it an optimally productive regulator.
He described the approval by Buhari as a great milestone in
furthering pluralism and freedom of expression in Nigeria.
A breakdown of the licences approved by the President showed
a total 210 licences in 2018; 159 in 2021; 32 in 2022; five in 2022; 67 in 2023, bringing the total number of licences
approved to 473 in eight years.
This is in addition to the 740 functional broadcast stations
in Nigeria currently in operation.
Ilelah, however, said the number was expected to grow with
the anticipatory approval of additional licences by Buhari soon.
He said, ‘‘I have committed so much to repositioning the
commission and making it an optimally productive regulator. The intrinsic democratic values in President
Muhammadu Buhari have made him to be the President in the history of Nigeria
that had granted approval for hundred of broadcast licences.’’
0 comments:
Post a Comment