The Director General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) Is’haq Modibbo Kawu said the duty of regulating the broadcast industry has become ever more challenging as the number of stations being licensed to operate increases by the day.
The DG explained that as the NBC tries to keep up with the growing number of licenses, some broadcast stations deliberately don’t adhere to the broadcast code as they believe they should not be regulated while some stations regularly air content that leave much to be desired from the perspective of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code.
Kawu who said this on Tuesday at the 5th annual lecture of the NBC with the theme, ” Contemporary Challenges Of The Nigerian State: Need For Constructive Broadcasting” said broadcast contents can be modified to address the “hydra-headed problems” facing Nigeria.
“The broadcaster has an obligation to conduct programming and news, as well as commentaries, in manners that would aid the efforts to confront the challenges that face the Nigerian State and society. We are all aware that the Nigerian State confronts several challenges today”, he said.
He also assured that the NBC will continue to work in the interest of our Nigeria.
The chairman of the NBC, Ikra Bilbis in his address informed that the commission is focusing on a number of initiatives to bring broadcasting in Nigeria at par with the rest of the world.
Bilbis announced that the commission is set to build a befitting structure to house it’s headquarter Abuja. The structure, according to him will be fitted with state-of-the-art monitoring facilities to enable a proper monitoring of the broadcast airwaves in the Country.
The Chairman while stressing the power of the Broadcast media to affect people’s thinking and behaviour for good or evil, said it must be regulated. He said the theme for the lecture is apt, “considering the fundamental issues that the Nigerian state is facing and the place of the
broadcasting media in helping to address them.”
The Ministers of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed on his part said the broadcast industry owns it as a duty to Nigerians to use its platform to encourage productivity, patriotism, national unity and cohesion.
He decried that the information space has been flooded with content that test the unity and peace of the country in recent times. “These contents circulate within the social media like Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram and many other social media platforms. Some of these contents which are mostly unverifiable find their ways into the main stream media, in form of fake news.”
Mohammed recalled that President Mohammadu Buhari has approved wide ranging reforms, including the licensing of online radio and television stations and the review of broadcast code to bring it in line with current realities.
He therefore enjoined the broadcast media to constructively make use of the social media contents with great sense of patriotism for peace and unity in Nigeria.
Godsgift Onyedinefu, Abuja
