The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project has urged the President, Muhammadu Buhari, to instruct the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, and the National Broadcasting Commission to urgently withdraw the last warning and threat to revoke the licenses of broadcast stations and shut them over their coverage of elections and post-election matters.
This was disclosed in a statement following a meeting between the NBC’s Director-General, Balarabe Ilelah, and broadcast stations on the coverage of the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections.
The National Broadcasting Commission had last week threatened to revoke the licenses of broadcast stations and shut them down, saying it was giving its last warning to broadcast stations and will not hesitate to shut or revoke the license of any when convinced its activities are capable of undermining the peaceful coexistence of the country.
According to Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, threatening to shut down and revoke the licenses of broadcast stations simply for carrying out their watchdog role is clearly incompatible with Nigeria’s constitutional and international human rights obligations.
