DAILY RENDEZVOUS

Daily Rendezvous    The Federal High Court in Lagos has extended the order stopping President Muhammadu Buhari and the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) from revoking the licenses of 53 broadcast stations in the country, and shutting down the stations for allegedly failing to renew their licenses.   Honourable Justice Akintayo Aluko (Court 8) had on 29 August 2022 granted an order of interim injunction following the hearing of an argument on motion exparte by Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) and Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE).   The order was granted pending the hearing of the Motion on Notice for interlocutory injunction.   When the case came up before the Court for hearing today, Honourable Justice Daniel Emeka Osiagor extended the order of interim injunction pending the hearing of the Motion on Notice, and adjourned the case to 26th October 2022 for the hearing of the originating summons.   The Court extended the...

Daily Rendezvous  The decision today by Industry Regulator , the National Broadcasting Commission - NBC, to revoke the licenses of 52 broadcast stations nationwide over indebtedness to the Commission was ill advised. The affected stations, according to NBC are said to owe arrears of licence fees amounting to N2.6 billon since 2015. Although the Director General of NBC, Malam Balarabe Shehu Ilelah claimed that this development had no political motives, yet we insist that the action was ill timed and reckless. It should be noted that this wholesale revocation of licences at this critical time of insecurity in the Country appears to be a decision taken without careful prior deliberation, consultation or counsel.  While we regret the inability of these broadcast stations to fulfill their obligations to NBC, in-view of dwindling resources, we caution against such large scale clampdown of broadcast stations in disregard to security issues and the attendant consequence. W...

Daily Rendezvous NBC revokes licenses of AIT, Silverbird, Raypower FM, others The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has revoked the broadcast licences of Silverbird TV, AIT, Raypower FM, and Rhythm FM amongst 47 others over failure to renew their broadcast licences. Director General Mallam Balarabe Shehu, who disclosed this on Friday, directed its state offices to liaise with security agencies to ensure the shut down of the operation of these stations within the next 24 hours. The stations have been owing the Commission N2.6 billion since 2015. Ilelah while briefing journalists in Abuja on Friday, said there was no political undertone in revoking the license of the debtor-broadcast stations. He urged the stations to pay their fees before 24 hours to avert total disconnection. Earlier, in May 2022, he said the NBC published in the national dailies, the list of licensees that are indebted to the Commission, and granted them two weeks to renew their licenses a...