*As NBC deploys operational facilities for monitoring the 2023 general elections
*Constitutes Monitoring Committee to provide rapid response to unethical broadcasting and violations on election days
President Muhammadu Buhari has approved 67 new broadcast licenses for television and radio stations across the country.
Meanwhile, the National Broadcasting Commission(NBC) has deployed all the technical and operational facilities for monitoring the forthcoming general elections just as Central Monitoring Committee has been constituted to provide rapid response to unethical broadcasting and violations on election days.
About 302 broadcast stations breached the National Broadcasting Code in the last two years.
Director General, National Broadcasting Commission, Malam Balarabe Ilelah, who disclosed this yesterday in Abuja, noted that approval of the 67 broadcast licenses was a great milestone in furthering pluralism and freedom of expression in Nigeria.
Ilelah further observed that the approval was in line with the democratic values of President Buhari, bringing to a total of 473 licenses granted under his administration.
The NBC boss who gave a breakdown of the licenses approved by the President, said that he approved a total of 210 permits in 2018; 159 in 2020; 32 in 2021; five in 2022 and 67 in 2023, bringing the total to licenses approved by the President to 473 in eight years.
According to him, this is in addition to the 740 functional broadcast stations in Nigeria currently in operation. At the same time, the number was expected to grow with the anticipatory approval of additional licenses by Mr President soon.
He said: “I have committed so much to repositioning the Commission and making it an optimally productive regulator. The intrinsic democratic values in President Buhari have made him to be the President in the history of Nigeria that had granted approval for hundreds of broadcast licenses’’.
Ilelah called on broadcasters to continue to abide by the NBC Act, the Nigeria Broadcasting Code, the Electoral Act and any extant law that guides media operations to ensure that the general elections are free, fair and credible.
On the number of broadcast stations sanctioned since his assumption of office, the NBC boss said 196 stations have been warned, 17 fined, 67 cautioned and 93 stations were reprimanded, bringing it to a total of 302 stations.
Ilelah stated that President Buhari has approved the independence of NBC from any political interference in the exercise of its regulatory functions particularly with respect to the issuance and withdrawal of broadcasting licenses.
He disclosed that President Buhari has also approved for the Commission to acquire state-of-the-art Nationwide Broadcast Monitoring Equipment, adding that the acquisition of the equipment is in the process and if finally acquired, the Commission will get to have Ultra-Modern Artificial Intelligence-driven Central Monitoring infrastructure.
