Nigeria’s broadcast regulator – National Broadcasting Commission has fined Multichoice Nigeria Ltd and others 5 million naira ($12,013) each for broadcasting a BBC report that it said “glorified the activities of bandits and undermines national security.”
Multichoice Nigeria Ltd is part of a South African pay-TV group. The National Broadcasting Commission issued a statement on Wednesday that the media houses had until Aug 30 to pay. It also fined local channel Trust TV, part of the conglomerate that owns the well-known Daily Trust newspaper, for its own special report on banditry.
“The Commission wishes to seize this opportunity to advise broadcasters to be circumspect and deliberate in the choice and carriage of contents deleterious to Nigeria’s national security,” NBC said in a statement.
Quoting its management, The Daily Trust said, “We wish to state unequivocally that as a television station, we believe we were acting in the public interest by shedding light on the thorny issue of banditry.”
In an emailed statement, BBC clarified that, “this story is overwhelmingly in the public interest and the BBC stands by its journalism.” Multichoice issued no immediate comment.
London-based Reuters media agency reported that armed criminals, known locally as bandits, have kidnapped thousands of Nigerians over the past two years.
Free speech and democracy activists in Africa’s most populous country have raised the alarm over what they say are erosions to freedom of expression in recent years, including last year’s ban on social media platform Twitter.
