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Federal High Court bars NBC from imposing fines on broadcast stations in Nigeria

Published

3 years ago

May 10, 2023

481 Views

A Federal High Court in Abuja, on Wednesday, gave an order of perpetual injunction restraining the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) from imposing fines, henceforth, on broadcast stations in the country.
Justice James Omotosho, in a judgement, also set aside the N500,000 fines imposed, on March 1, 2019, on each of the 45 broadcast stations.
Justice Omotosho held that the NBC, not being a court of law, had no power to impose sanctions as punishment on broadcast stations.
He further held that the NBC Code, which gives the commission the power to impose sanction, is in conflict with Section 6 of the Constitution that vested judicial power in the court of law.
He said the court would not sit idle and watch a body imposing fine arbitrarily without recourse to the law.
He said that the commission did not comply with the law when it sat as a complainant and at the same time, the court and the judge on its own matter.
The judge agreed that the Nigeria Broadcasting Code, being a subsidiary legislation that empowers an administrative body such as the NBC to.enforce its provisions cannot confer judicial powers on the commission to impose criminal sanctions or penalties such as fines.
He also agreed that the commission, not being Nigerian police, had no power to conduct criminal investigation that would lead to criminal trial and imposition of sanctions.
“This will go against the doctrine of separation of powers,” he said.
Omotosho held that what the doctrine sought to achieve was to prevent tyranny by concentrating too much powers in one organ.
“The action of the respondent qualifies as excessiveness” as it had ascribed to itself the judicial and executive powers.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the NBC had, on March 1, 2019, imposed the sum of N500, 000 each on 45 broadcast stations in the country over alleged violation of its code.
However, the Incorporated Trustees of Media Rights Agenda had, in an originating motions marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/1386/2021, sued the NBC as sole respondent in the suit.
In the motion dated Nov. 9, 2021 by its lawyer, Noah Ajare, the group sought a declaration that the sanctions procedure applied by the NBC in imposing N500,00Q fines on each of the 45 broadcast stations on March 1, 2019 was a violation of the rules of natural justice.
The lawyer also said that the fines were in violation of the right to fair hearing under Section 36 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and Articles 7 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act (Cap AQ) Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.
The group argued that this was so because the code, which created the alleged offences of which the broadcast stations were accused was written and adopted by the NBC, “and also gives powers to the said commission to receive complaints of alleged breaches, investigate and adjudicate the complaints, impose sanctions, including fines, and ultimately collect the fines, which the commission uses for its own purposes.”
They, therefore, sought an order setting aside the N500,000 fines purportedly imposed by the NBC on each of the 45 broadcast stations on Friday, March 1, 2019.
They also sought “an order of perpetual Injunction restraining the respondent, its servants, agents, privies, representatives or anyone acting for or on its behalf, from imposing fines on any of the broadcast stations or any other broadcast station in Nigeria for any alleged offence committed under the Nigerian Broadcasting Code.”
Delivering the judgment, Justice Omotosho decsribed the NBC’s act as being ultra vires.
He held that the fines imposed by the NBC as punishment for commission of various offences under its code were contrary to the law and hereby declared as unconstitutional, null and void.
The judge also made an order of perpetual injunction restraining the commission from further imposing fines on broadcast stations in the country.

Courtesy: (NAN)

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Truecaller adds travel eSIM to portfolio

COO at Truecaller, Fredrik Kjell, said that the launch marks Truecaller’s move into mobile data services, broadening the platform beyond caller ID and spam protection, and for the first time adding digital consumables to the portfolio.

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Truecaller has launched travel eSIM in Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Malaysia, and 25 other countries, saying it is to deepen global communications among people by dismantling fetters occasioned by location.

Travel eSIM is also currently available to purchase in Italy, Sweden, Spain, France, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Romania, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Austria, Finland, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland, Norway, Chile and Indonesia.

The leading global platform for verifying contacts and blocking unwanted communication, has 500 million people already on its platform with their daily communication.

Travel eSIM extends that relationship to international travel – a category where users routinely overpay for connectivity or arrive at their destination disconnected.

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Nigeria’s external debt: Tinubu’s borrowing in 24 months surpasses 55 years record

He revealed that, with Nigeria’s total public debt of N159.28 trillion as of April 2026, according to the Debt Management Office, every Nigerian owes N670,000, lamenting the rapid expansion of Nigeria’s debt profile in recent years.

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” The N65.9 trillion borrowed by the administration of President Bola Tinubu in the last 24 months is more than five times the total debt Nigeria incurred in the first 55 years of its Independence.”

This observation was made by Chairman of the Alliance for Economic Research and Ethics LTD/GTE, Dele Oye.

Oye, who is the immediate past chairman of the Organised Private Sector of Nigeria (OPSN), noted that while successive governments accumulated debt over decades, the Tinubu administration alone added N65.9 trillion in two years, compared to just N12 trillion accumulated over 55 years.

Oye cautioned that unless urgent measures are taken to strengthen revenue generation and fiscal discipline, the rising debt burden could place long-term pressure on public finances and constrain government spending on critical sectors.

Cast your mind back to 2006. Nigeria had just pulled off one of the most celebrated fiscal feats in African history. President Olusegun Obasanjo paid $12 billion to extinguish $30 billion in Paris Club debt. Nigeria was, briefly, externally debt-free. The Excess Crude Account (ECA) was flush. The future looked fundable. Twenty years later, that golden moment reads like a fairy tale. Under President Goodluck Jonathan, debt crept back to N12.06 trillion by 2015, manageable, but the warning signs were already blinking. Then came the Buhari years.

“In eight years, the debt exploded from N12.06 trillion to N87.38 trillion, a 620 percent increase. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was pressed into printing money through ‘Ways and Means’ advances; N23.7 trillion of this was eventually securitised into long-term bonds, effectively converting a government overdraft into a generational liability.

“Tinubu’s administration has added a further N65.9 trillion in just two years. To put that in perspective: it took Nigeria’s first 55 years of independence to accumulate N12 trillion in debt. The present administration has added more than five times that amount in 24 months,” said Oye.

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Gas Marketers pleads for FG intervention over soaring price for common Nigerians

NALPGAM National President, Mr. Edu Inyang, said that cooking gas now sells between N1, 500 and N1, 700 per kilogram, the current situation has placed millions of households, food vendors, small businesses and low-income earners under severe pressure, as many Nigerians can no longer afford cooking gas for daily use.

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The Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers (NALPGAM) has appealed to the Federal Government to urgently intervene and stabilise the supply and pricing of cooking gas inoder to prevent further hardships on Nigerians.

He disclosed that marketers pay between N25.2 million and N26.2 million for a 20-metric-tonne truck of liquefied petroleum gas, depending on location.

He attributed the rising cost of LPG to persistent supply shortages, high depot prices, logistics bottlenecks and escalating operational costs faced by marketers nationwide.