The NBC has penalized TVC’s parent company, Continental Broadcasting Services Limited, for broadcasting “hate speech and inflammatory comments.”
TVC was given two weeks from the date of the letter to pay the N2 million punishment imposed by the Commission.
Balarabe Ilelah, director general of the NBC, said as much in a letter he signed on Friday.
The commission also issued a punishment to Arise TV for broadcasting a rally for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in Delta State, claiming that it contained unfair ridicule of the APC presidential candidate by Dino Melaye.
The Commission claimed to have seen “consistent” violations of the Nigeria broadcasting code by TVC in its coverage of election-related events.
According to NBC, TVC has made it something of a house style to broadcast hate speech, and provocative, insulting, and unjust comments.
The Commission made allusions to a press conference given by Festus Keyamo, a spokesperson for the presidential campaign council of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and to statements made by the party’s presidential candidate, 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.”’
