THE National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) has listed the offences committed by the Ekiti State Radio and Television stations, which led to their closure during the just concluded governorship election in the state.
The Director-General of the commission, Ishaq Modibo-Kawu, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ilorin, Kwara State that the commission was out to strictly enforce the broadcasting code in the build-up to the 2019 general elections.
He said that in the build-up to the Ekiti State governorship election, the commission sanctioned a couple of stations, especially the state-owned broadcast stations.
“We were forced by the circumstances of the actions taken there to close the Ekiti Broadcasting Services (EBS),” Modibbo-Kawu said.
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“First of all, the state government had appointed the DG of the EBS as the DG of a campaign of one of the political parties. This was not in consonance with the objectives of the NBC. So, we wrote a letter to the broadcaster and the governor of the state, but they ignored us.
“Secondly, when President Muhammadu Buhari visited the state, the governor made a broadcast that the people should not turn out to receive the president. This was beyond politics, so we sanctioned the station,” he said.
He added that “Soon after the elections before INEC announced the results, the state government went to radio and television to begin to announce his own results.
“We felt that was the point we had to act and we closed another station.”
