For a second time in less than one year, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has again suspended Channels Television for interviewing the IPOB spokesperson.
The commission has also slammed a N5 million fine against the news medium for what it calls ”breaching the broadcast code.”
On October 26, 2020, NBC fined AIT, Channels TV and Arise News N5 million each, for allegedly using unverifiable video footages from social media to cover the #EndSARS protests.
Channels via its official Twitter handle on Monday, April 26 wrote ”NBC in Buhari regime suspends Channels TV, slams them with a N5 million fine.”
In a letter addressed to the managing director of the TV station, Armstrong Idachaba, acting NBC director-general, said Emma Powerful, the IPOB spokesperson, made inciting comments without being cautioned during the Channels 7 p.m. live broadcast ‘Politics’ programme of Sunday, April 25, 2021.
The Professor accused the station of allowing a leader of the Indigenous people of Biafra (IPOB) to make secessionist and inciting declarations on air without caution or reprimand by the station contrary to the broadcast code.
Idachaba alleged that the station allowed its IPOB guest to make derogatory, false and misleading statements about the Nigerian Army despite being proscribed by a court of law.
