A Federal High Court in Abuja has declared the provisions of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code, allowing the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to impose fines on broadcast stations for alleged breaches, as null and void. The court ruled in response to a suit filed by the Media Rights Agenda (MRA) against the NBC, challenging fines imposed on a television station and three pay TV platforms in 2022 for broadcasting documentaries on banditry.<\/p>\n
Judge Rita Ofili-Ajumogobia quashed the code, stating that the NBC, being an administrative and regulatory body, cannot exercise judicial powers. The MRA argued that the fines were unconstitutional, violating freedom of expression rights and the right to a fair hearing. The court agreed, issuing a perpetual injunction against the NBC from imposing fines on media platforms.<\/p>\n
While setting aside the fines imposed on Multichoice Nigeria Limited, TelCom Satellite Limited (TSTV), Trust-TV Network Limited, and NTA Startimes Limited, the judge refused to grant the plaintiff’s claim for costs of the suit and general damages. The court also declined a request for punitive damages, stating that the fines were wrong and unjustifiable but stopping short of awarding financial compensation to the MRA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Federal High Court in Abuja has declared the provisions of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code, allowing the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to impose fines on broadcast stations for alleged breaches, as null and void. The court ruled in response to a suit filed by the Media Rights Agenda (MRA) against the NBC, challenging fines imposed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":15234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177,172],"tags":[568,514],"class_list":["post-15232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abuja-reports","category-news","tag-mra","tag-nbc"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15232"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15251,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15232\/revisions\/15251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}