The recent closure of the offices of Channels TV in Lagos and Abuja, the arrest and detention of the staff of the station and staff of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) are the major topics of disquisitions in the week starting from Monday 15 September. The issues are still being debated but I think a quick recap will put the point I want to make here in the context that gives it meaning: on Tuesday September 16, Channels TV broadcast the intended resignation of President Umar Yar’Adua. When this was found to be untrue, Channels retracted the story but that was too late. Armed men from the State Security Services swooped upon Channels’ offices in Lagos and Abuja, shut down the station and dragged away its staff. They spread their dragnet to the office of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the alleged source of the news, dragging into detention some of its staff as well. The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) promptly withdrew the broadcasting license of Channels without issuing it the mandatory warning stipulated in the NBC Code (Paragraph 10.7). Public condemnation of the actions of the NBC and SSS was uproarious and unanimous. Almost all speakers described the actions as a throwback to the dark days of Babangida and Abacha. On Friday, 19 September, the NBC lifted its ban on Channels and there were rumors that the detained staff had been released.
Issue-attention cycle in Nigeria can be very brief. The uproar over the event is abating and life will soon return to normal until something else happens. This is not the first time NBC would bang the sledge on a station. Independent Television and Independent Radio in Benin were sealed up on August 21, 2003 for playing martial music and causing a stir; AIT and Raypower FM were sealed up on October 23, 2005 for showing bodies of victims of an air crash in contravention, NBC claimed, of certain sections of the NBC code. Others, including DBN TV Lagos; Minaj-TV Obosi, Lagos and Port Harcourt; Minaj Radio, Obosi; Universal Broadcasting Service, Lagos; MG Communications, Kaduna, Freedom Radio, Kaduna and Radio Jeremi, Warri were suspended for various transgressions, including reluctance to renew their licences. Each action brought a climactic reaction, and then the denouement. What really is the problem?
In answering this question, I try to answer another question: if the Channels TV event were to have been in a country whose political weather is truly clement to the rule of law and due process, say the US, what would have happened? What would the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the US equivalent of NBC do? Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to examine what the FCC did in a typical case of contravention. In March 2003, the FCC received several petitions that ABC and its affiliates showed nudity in contravention of FCC regulations about 9pm on February 25, 2003. The stations, in one of the episodes of a syndicated program had shown a woman in a bathroom. The camera carefully avoided her front view but exposed the rear. The FCC invited the station to respond. A dialogue ensued. ABC claimed that what the regulations forbade was the display of sexual organs and that what it showed was a woman’s buttocks which were not a sexual organ. The FCC rejected that on the ground that the images were titillating, shocking and dwelled upon. There were further arguments and counter-arguments. The FCC fined each of the fifty-one stations that aired the program $27,500. FCC vigorously enforces the law where it finds violation. In 2004 alone, it took action in 12 cases involving hundreds of thousands of complaints, assigning penalties and voluntary payments totaling approximately $8 million.
Why is the approach of the NBC so radically different from that of the FCC? Why is the NBC still so confrontational nine years after Nigeria became a democracy? Some might think the US case differs in that the Nigerian case involved a security issue. I disagree. Chief Shonekan ‘resigned’ and the nation did not even feel it. In my view, the problem is structural and cultural. Fundamentally, though the NBC claims it is out to protect “your right to quality broadcasting”, it is really an agency of the executive arm of government. The FCC gets its powers from and reports to the US Congress, whereas the NBC is responsible to the president. The NBC reports to one man; the FCC reports to hundreds. The unmistakable proclivity, especially in our culture, is to want to please the person to whom one reports. In the Channels TV case, it is almost certain that the president did not order the NBC to shut down Channels; the Commission probably acted out of overzealous willingness to please its real boss. I have no difficulty imagining that were the NBC under the supervision of the House of Representatives or Senate or both, the case would have been different. I have no difficulty in concluding that unless the Commission is moved from the presidency, cases like this will continue to occur. I have no difficulty in concluding that were the FCC in NBC’s shoes, it would dialogue with Channels and NAN, rather than ask the nearest battalion to invade their premises and incarcerate their staff.
Not many people know that in Nigeria, only one person determines who owns a broadcast station and when, and that person is the president. If you apply for a broadcast license, it moves from the NBC to the Ministry of Information and finally to the president’s table. If he says ‘No’, or if he is simply too busy to append his signature, or he is away on hajj, that is it. Yet all over the world, the maxim is “the airwaves belong to the people”. Is this maxim true in the case of Nigeria? If the airwaves belong to the people, then they should be managed by the people’s representatives. Of course we know that most of the current representatives were imposed on the people, but so was the president.
Yes, I agree that the actions of the NBC were a throwback to the ignoble days of Babangida and Abacha but they were a manifestation of the several structural carry-overs from our recent past. It is not enough to condemn the actions of the NBC. We need to correct the structural lopsidedness in our polity that makes the president more powerful than the country he runs and a governor the all-in-all of his state. What really are we making of democracy in Nigeria? We think because we hold periodic elections, we are a democracy. People agitate and struggle during elections and after that go home and wait for another four years. No one is holding anyone accountable for his actions. There are no on-going dialogues. Yet theorists of democracy, whether radical or democratic pluralists, hold that dialogue is the fuel on which democracy runs. By dialogue is meant what I call “same-rung deliberation” in that participants are sitting on the same rungs of a ladder, and not the fear-run dialogue between a cat and mice.
It is instructive that of all the commentators on the Channels event, no one has spoken in support of the actions of Channels or NAN. (Well NAN denied knowledge of the offensive news item.) What people have condemned is the approach adopted by the NBC and the SSS. No one would be happy with airwaves run by libertine licentiousness. And no one would suggest that we adopt the US code. But there must be dialogue in a democracy and there must be a procedure. If the law indeed says that telling people that the president has resigned is punishable by imprisonment, no Nigerian would cry if offenders were imprisoned once the proper procedure is followed which procedure must include giving the accused proper chance to defend himself — again — dialogue.
Our lawmakers must take a pause and examine the institutions and structure which we carried over from the dark days of the military and which were exploited by the immediate last civilian administration to rule the land with military ruthlessness. Such institutions and structures must be dismantled. NBC would be the happier for it if it is rescued from the choking tentacles of the presidency.
Finally, not in its own interest but in the interest of democracy, Channels TV must head for court and seek redress. The incarcerated staff must do same. This is how we can nurture our democracy.
Ayobami Ojebode writes from College of Communications, Pennsylvania State University, USA
Channels TV Closure: if it were FCC… Ayo Ojebode
Posted by ojebode on September 26, 2008
The recent closure of the offices of Channels TV in Lagos and Abuja, the arrest and detention of the staff of the station and staff of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) are the major topics of disquisitions in the week starting from Monday 15 September. The issues are still being debated but I think a quick recap will put the point I want to make here in the context that gives it meaning: on Tuesday September 16, Channels TV broadcast the intended resignation of President Umar Yar’Adua. When this was found to be untrue, Channels retracted the story but that was too late. Armed men from the State Security Services swooped upon Channels’ offices in Lagos and Abuja, shut down the station and dragged away its staff. They spread their dragnet to the office of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the alleged source of the news, dragging into detention some of its staff as well. The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) promptly withdrew the broadcasting license of Channels without issuing it the mandatory warning stipulated in the NBC Code (Paragraph 10.7). Public condemnation of the actions of the NBC and SSS was uproarious and unanimous. Almost all speakers described the actions as a throwback to the dark days of Babangida and Abacha. On Friday, 19 September, the NBC lifted its ban on Channels and there were rumors that the detained staff had been released.
Issue-attention cycle in Nigeria can be very brief. The uproar over the event is abating and life will soon return to normal until something else happens. This is not the first time NBC would bang the sledge on a station. Independent Television and Independent Radio in Benin were sealed up on August 21, 2003 for playing martial music and causing a stir; AIT and Raypower FM were sealed up on October 23, 2005 for showing bodies of victims of an air crash in contravention, NBC claimed, of certain sections of the NBC code. Others, including DBN TV Lagos; Minaj-TV Obosi, Lagos and Port Harcourt; Minaj Radio, Obosi; Universal Broadcasting Service, Lagos; MG Communications, Kaduna, Freedom Radio, Kaduna and Radio Jeremi, Warri were suspended for various transgressions, including reluctance to renew their licences. Each action brought a climactic reaction, and then the denouement. What really is the problem?
In answering this question, I try to answer another question: if the Channels TV event were to have been in a country whose political weather is truly clement to the rule of law and due process, say the US, what would have happened? What would the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the US equivalent of NBC do? Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to examine what the FCC did in a typical case of contravention. In March 2003, the FCC received several petitions that ABC and its affiliates showed nudity in contravention of FCC regulations about 9pm on February 25, 2003. The stations, in one of the episodes of a syndicated program had shown a woman in a bathroom. The camera carefully avoided her front view but exposed the rear. The FCC invited the station to respond. A dialogue ensued. ABC claimed that what the regulations forbade was the display of sexual organs and that what it showed was a woman’s buttocks which were not a sexual organ. The FCC rejected that on the ground that the images were titillating, shocking and dwelled upon. There were further arguments and counter-arguments. The FCC fined each of the fifty-one stations that aired the program $27,500. FCC vigorously enforces the law where it finds violation. In 2004 alone, it took action in 12 cases involving hundreds of thousands of complaints, assigning penalties and voluntary payments totaling approximately $8 million.
Why is the approach of the NBC so radically different from that of the FCC? Why is the NBC still so confrontational nine years after Nigeria became a democracy? Some might think the US case differs in that the Nigerian case involved a security issue. I disagree. Chief Shonekan ‘resigned’ and the nation did not even feel it. In my view, the problem is structural and cultural. Fundamentally, though the NBC claims it is out to protect “your right to quality broadcasting”, it is really an agency of the executive arm of government. The FCC gets its powers from and reports to the US Congress, whereas the NBC is responsible to the president. The NBC reports to one man; the FCC reports to hundreds. The unmistakable proclivity, especially in our culture, is to want to please the person to whom one reports. In the Channels TV case, it is almost certain that the president did not order the NBC to shut down Channels; the Commission probably acted out of overzealous willingness to please its real boss. I have no difficulty imagining that were the NBC under the supervision of the House of Representatives or Senate or both, the case would have been different. I have no difficulty in concluding that unless the Commission is moved from the presidency, cases like this will continue to occur. I have no difficulty in concluding that were the FCC in NBC’s shoes, it would dialogue with Channels and NAN, rather than ask the nearest battalion to invade their premises and incarcerate their staff.
Not many people know that in Nigeria, only one person determines who owns a broadcast station and when, and that person is the president. If you apply for a broadcast license, it moves from the NBC to the Ministry of Information and finally to the president’s table. If he says ‘No’, or if he is simply too busy to append his signature, or he is away on hajj, that is it. Yet all over the world, the maxim is “the airwaves belong to the people”. Is this maxim true in the case of Nigeria? If the airwaves belong to the people, then they should be managed by the people’s representatives. Of course we know that most of the current representatives were imposed on the people, but so was the president.
Yes, I agree that the actions of the NBC were a throwback to the ignoble days of Babangida and Abacha but they were a manifestation of the several structural carry-overs from our recent past. It is not enough to condemn the actions of the NBC. We need to correct the structural lopsidedness in our polity that makes the president more powerful than the country he runs and a governor the all-in-all of his state. What really are we making of democracy in Nigeria? We think because we hold periodic elections, we are a democracy. People agitate and struggle during elections and after that go home and wait for another four years. No one is holding anyone accountable for his actions. There are no on-going dialogues. Yet theorists of democracy, whether radical or democratic pluralists, hold that dialogue is the fuel on which democracy runs. By dialogue is meant what I call “same-rung deliberation” in that participants are sitting on the same rungs of a ladder, and not the fear-run dialogue between a cat and mice.
It is instructive that of all the commentators on the Channels event, no one has spoken in support of the actions of Channels or NAN. (Well NAN denied knowledge of the offensive news item.) What people have condemned is the approach adopted by the NBC and the SSS. No one would be happy with airwaves run by libertine licentiousness. And no one would suggest that we adopt the US code. But there must be dialogue in a democracy and there must be a procedure. If the law indeed says that telling people that the president has resigned is punishable by imprisonment, no Nigerian would cry if offenders were imprisoned once the proper procedure is followed which procedure must include giving the accused proper chance to defend himself — again — dialogue.
Our lawmakers must take a pause and examine the institutions and structure which we carried over from the dark days of the military and which were exploited by the immediate last civilian administration to rule the land with military ruthlessness. Such institutions and structures must be dismantled. NBC would be the happier for it if it is rescued from the choking tentacles of the presidency.
Finally, not in its own interest but in the interest of democracy, Channels TV must head for court and seek redress. The incarcerated staff must do same. This is how we can nurture our democracy.
Ayobami Ojebode writes from College of Communications, Pennsylvania State University, USA
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