GoTV, NBC AND DSO palaver: Call for patriotism
The travails of the embattled Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Ishaq Modibbo Kawu can be seen as part of relentless efforts to force the Commission to rescind its decision to stop renewal of the broadcast licenses of GoTV on different terms from the past years, as part of the implementation of the Federal Government Digital Switch Over (DSO) policy by the Commission. Remember that 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. Suddenly, several petitions against the NBC and the DG with particular interest in smearing the implementation of the DSO with trumped up allegations started making the rounds in social media and investigative agencies. There was even an attempt 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.
It was an indication that all the stages of implementation of the DSO since 2014 have been meeting the requirements of due process in line with the directives of the Federal Executive Council. It was therefore surprising to many stakeholders that ICPC took up the petitions. The inclusion of numerous factual errors and wrong identification of the NBC and the objective of the DSO in the ICPC press release issued in November 2018 triggered public outrage. The fiasco over the NBC/DSO investigation was “embarrassing” to ICPC similar to the unfreezing of the accounts of Pinnacle Communications Limited after it sued ICPC before an Abuja Federal High Court presided by Justice Dimgba who berated the ICPC for taking action against the company without thorough investigation or justification.
All these 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.” Please Nigerians should be patriotic and stop playing into the hands of foreign detractors.
Moses Runka, Jos, Plateau State