The NBC had early in
2018 issued a warning notifying all DTT pay television service providers in
Nigeria that their operating licenses will be reviewed in the year 2019.
The relationship between
NBC and GoTV has been the subject of agitated interest among stakeholders in
the DSO and the broadcast sector in general following the barely concealed
resistance to the June 2019 deadline for GoTV to comply with the policy of the
Federal Government on the DSO and channel the carriage of its content through
any of the licensed signal distribution hubs of the DSO.
The unsolicited deposit
of N2 billion into NBC’s account by GoTV some months ago raised eyebrows as it
was seen as ploy to circumvent the proposed change in the license terms of
GoTV. The belief was that a cash-strapped NBC could not refuse the funds.
However, NBC Chairman, Ikra Bilbis reportedly ordered the return of the money
to GoTV with a stern warning to GOtv to abide by the NBC’s earlier notice,
emphasising that there would be no waiver or exemption.
While some stakeholders
in the broadcasting industry were commending the NBC Chairman, the South
African owned GoTV were undeterred in their determination to evade NBC’s DSO
implementation agenda by other means. These took the form of commissioning
several petitions against the NBC and the DG with particular interest in
smearing the implementation of the DSO with trumped up allegations.
Not done with petitions,
GoTV along with some unscrupulous, selfish and unpatriotic Nigerians in the NBC
and the House of Reps to cause a change to the laws of Nigeria to favor the
position of GoTV that the DSO be jettisoned. The refusal of the Presidency to
assent to the Bill dealt a huge blow to their aspirations.
Sources also revealed
that a major anti graft agency was not amenable to the ulterior motives of the
sponsored petitions especially as all the stages of implementation of the DSO
since 2014 were found to have met the requirements of due process and all
payments approvals in line with the directives of the Federal Executive
Council.
It was therefore surprising
to many stakeholders that another sister anti graft body (name withheld for
now) took up the misinformed allegations in one of the petitions. The inclusion
of numerous factual errors and wrong identification of the NBC and the
objective of the DSO in their now famous press release issued in November 2018
ostensibly show-casing the anti-corruption agency’s feat, triggered public
outrage and raised serious doubts as to the genuineness of the purported
investigations and motives.
Sources close to the
anti graft body’s management revealed that the fiasco over the NBC/DSO
investigation was “embarrassing” as it exposed them to public ridicule over the
numerous errors that could not have been the outcome of proper investigation
but the decision to take the matter to court to freeze accounts and arraign NBC
and Pinnacle Communications Limited executives had been fast-tracked prior to
the fiasco. An indication of the credibility of the petition-based action of
agency was the unfreezing of the accounts of Pinnacle Communications Limited
after it sued the said agency before an Abuja Federal High Court presided by
Justice Dimgba who berated them for taking action against the company without
thorough investigation or justification.
Expectations that the
inauguration of a new board for the anti graft organization, which had been
operating without a board and under an acting chairman, would lead to a review
of the whole investigation proved misleading as the Executive Chairman appears
to have ignored all entreaties to review the investigative processes. The
suspicion is that the Executive Chairman may have been inadvertently dragged
into the Gotv plot due to his alleged affinity with a top official in
government. The top official, who is said to wield a lot of influence in
directing the anti graft agency , shares the sentiments of GoTV to the
detriment of the interest of the Government of Nigeria.
Meanwhile, there are
also allegations that part of the N2 Billion GoTV money rejected by NBC is said
to have found its way into private pockets of some of the agency’s operatives.
These operatives are said to have sworn to destroy the patriotic zeal of the
NBC DG and the world class delivery of Pinnacle Communications Limited, who
received only partial payment well after six months of excellent delivery of
the Abuja project by the President through the Vice President and six months
before the Kaduna delivery commissioned by the Governor of Kaduna State.
The scheming has led to
the delay/suspension of the otherwise steady roll-out of the DSO to the states
since February 2018 in Osogbo where Information Minister Lai Mohammed, who has
maintained a loud silence till date, bragged “within the next few weeks, we
will be rolling out in many more states as we seek to take the digital television
experience to all the six geo-political zones. We now have our two Signal
Distributors in full operation mode, the National Broadcasting Commission, the
Set Top Box manufacturers, Digiteam Nigeria and indeed all stakeholders are
pulling all the stops to ensure that the DSO train continues unimpeded on its
journey across the country.”.
Disu White, a
communication expert, contributed this piece from Lagos.
