The National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, has fined the Continental Broadcasting Services Limited, owners of Television Continental, TVC, for airing “hate speech and inflammatory comments”.
The Commission asked TVC to pay a fine of N2 million within two weeks of receiving the letter.
The disclosure was contained in a letter signed by the NBC Director-General, Balarabe Ilelah, on Friday.
The commission also fined Arise TV for airing the Presidential campaign rally of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, which was held in Delta State, saying it was replete with unfair mockery of the APC presidential candidate by Dino Melaye.
The Commission said it observed TVC’s “consistent” breach of the Nigeria broadcasting code concerning the coverage of activities for the general election.
The NBC also said TVC aired hate speech, inflammatory, derogatory and unfair comments, a trend the Commission said had become a house style on TVC.
The Commission mentioned references to a media briefing by Festus Keyamo, one of the spokespersons of the All Progressives Congress, APC, presidential campaign council, and comments by the presidential candidate of the party, Bola Tinubu.
The letter partly stated, “On 06/01/23 at 12:29PM, the Joint Media Directorate of the APC Presidential Campaign Council made the following comments while briefing the media. Festus Keyamo: ‘…Obasanjo and Atiku run a criminal enterprise, an empire of fraud in Abuja. At the same time that Ahmed Bola Asiwaju was toiling hard, beautifully and meticulously to rebuild Lagos, 2 criminals were stealing money in Abuja at the time… they both stole from the SPV account at that time.”’
It also said, “On 24/01/23 at 03:39 PM, during the APC Presidential campaign in Abia State, the APC Presidential Candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu after telling the public to vote APC under the symbol of broom, he went on to make the following comment ‘…You know what you do with the rest of them? They are like lizards, cockroaches and mosquitoes. Just take the broom, wipe them off.”’
