Court stops NBC from imposing fines on broadcast stations

 

The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has been barred by a federal high court sitting in Abuja from further imposing fines on broadcast stations in the country.

Justice James Omotosho who gave the ruling in the lawsuit marked “FHC/ABJ/CS/1386/2021" filed by a group, the Incorporated Trustees of Media Rights Agenda, voided the N500,000 fines imposed by NBC on 45 broadcast stations on March 1, 2019. He stated that the NBC is not a court of law and lacks the power to impose sanctions as punishment on alleged erring broadcast stations.

Justice Omotosho also held that the NBC Code on which the commission relies to impose sanction, is in conflict with Section 6 of the Constitution that vested judicial power in the court of law.

He further stated that the court would not sit idle and watch a body imposing fine arbitrarily without recourse to the law, adding that the commission did not comply with the law when it sat as a complainant and at the same time, a court and a judge on its own case.