The National Broadcasting Commission on Wednesday imposed a fine of N5 million on Trust Television Network (Trust TV) over the broadcast of the documentary titled “Nigeria’s Banditry: The Inside Story.”
The documentary was aired by the station on the March 5, 2022.
On July 28, the Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed said the Federal Government on Thursday said it will penalize BBC and Trust TV for allegedly promoting bandits in their reports.
Mr Mohammed said, “There is a regulatory body regulating broadcasting which is the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission (NBC) and they are also aware of these two incident.
“They are looking at which part of the Broadcasting Code that has been violated by the BBC and Trust TV. Media is the oxygen that terrorists and bandits use to breathe.”
The Trust TV management, in a statement on Wednesday, said the fine was communicated to the media group in a letter signed by the NBC Director General, Balarabe Shehu Illela.
Mr Illela had said the fine was imposed on Trust TV because its broadcast of the said documentary contravened sections of the National Broadcasting Code.
Trust TV said in a statement that, “While we are currently studying the Commission’s action and weighing our options, 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 and how it is affecting millions of citizens of our country.
“The documentary traces the root of the communal tensions and systemic inadequacies which led to the armed conflict that is setting the stage for another grand humanitarian crisis in Nigeria. It presents insights into the intersection of injustice, ethnicity and bad governance as drivers of the conflict. It also aggregates voices of experts and key actors towards finding solutions, including those of the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, and Senator Saidu Mohammed Dansadau, who hails from one the worst-hit communities in Zamfara State.
“Other experts featured in the documentary include scholars like Professor Abubakar Saddique of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and Dr. Murtala Ahmed Rufai of the Usmanu Danfodio University, Sokoto, who have both studied the subject of banditry for a long period.
“The documentary also brought to the fore the horrifying stories of victims of banditry.”
On July 29, a Kaduna-based Islamic scholar Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, has advised the federal government not to make the media its scapegoat over its failure to tackle raging insecurity across the country.
Sheikh Gumi said, “When a Commander-in-Chief rewards failure with Ambassadorial appointments in a system and a society that records increased attacks, when security agencies cannot even protect Abuja and especially when the Guards Brigade cannot even protect themselves not to talk of the President then why blaming the media for such failure and ineptitude for reporting it?”
