The National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, has in recent years faced allegations of non-transparency and unfair targeting of media outlets through excessive fines. Many see this as an attack on press freedom in Nigeria.
Speaking, Aiyetan addressed major reason some citizens perceive NBC as biased.
“It is difficult to achieve trust from citizens and the media, who see NBC as an agent of government. If NBC is an independent entity, there would be more trust that our actions benefit the public interest, rather than being viewed as attacks on the media’s role of holding government accountable. With an independent status, NBC can perform its mandates more effectively without accusations of favouring the government.
But for now, anything NBC does, any regulation that comes out is seen as an attack on the media rather than looking at it as a way of protecting the people.”
While stating some of the efforts that are being made to enable NBC attain independence, she said:
“Currently, the NBC Act is at the National Assembly for review to align with global best practices and all of these narratives will be looked at.
The fact that the NBC is an agency under the Ministry of Information, which also houses some of the regulations of the NBC, makes it a bit cumbersome. How does NBC exercise its power to regulate the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and other government media houses if it is being supervised by the government?
But if it is an independent organisation and looks at all media houses as the same, then a level playing field can be achieved. The private stations will not say, oh there is no level playing field or that NBC is there to favour government stations and antagonise private stations.”
When asked about what the NBC is Doing To Protect Minors’ Identities, she said the commission is looking to enforcing the rules that guides child protection.
“Yes, if you look at your social media handle on your phone, you see where you can report. If you have a lot of reports, it gains traction and then the platform is forced to take down that video.
Nevertheless, there’s a moderation committee for Meta, Facebook, X, Google, YouTube and all of that.
What the government was trying to achieve some time ago when it had an impasse with Twitter was to get these social media giants to domesticate in Nigeria.
What does it mean? You can recognise Facebook as Facebook Nigeria, Twitter Nigeria, TikTok Nigeria and all of that. And when they are domesticated, we can relate to them from the purview of Nigerian legislation and what is acceptable within the Nigerian territory.
Not that because it’s an international platform governed by international laws, certain things are allowed. We do not want that to happen.
We will not stop them from being international organisations. We want them to be able to be responsive to us as regulators or as a country. When we say this is not acceptable within Nigeria, they should take it down.
But now, when we say this is not acceptable within Nigeria, the comment that may come from them is, well, we don’t see anything wrong with it.
Somebody from the UK, somebody from the US, or somebody from Europe will not understand why Nigerians are saying this is not acceptable to them.
However, the issue of a child’s identity being exposed in the case of crime is supposed to be an international concern.
It doesn’t happen outside Nigeria so why is this happening to a Nigerian child? Why is it allowed to happen to a Nigerian child? That is because we’ve not been able to enforce these rules.”
She further revealed that the NBC is making progress in regulating social media apps in Nigeria.
“A lot has been done, I’m not speaking for the federal government but speaking for the NBC. To regulate these apps, there are different agencies. There are the NBC, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), which regulates data, and the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA). So, all these agencies are looking at what we can use to regulate them.
So, what is important is that Nigeria is trying to consolidate all of these agencies, to have one agency that regulates these platforms.
And of course, the regulation will not be as strict as that of traditional media. But whether we like it or not, media activities on social media platforms are in everybody’s face.
Young people are not listening to the radio, they’re not watching TV, they’re all on social media. That’s why we should be concerned about what happens there.
That’s why we should have moderation as to what happens there. And that’s why the African regulators are also calling for some kind of media literacy, taking it down.