ICPC, NBC/DSO tango and matters arising

The Independent Corrupt Practises and Other Related Offences Commission(ICPC) has for some time now been investigating the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission(NBC) over alleged misapplication of the N2.5 billion seed money granted by the Federal Government for the Digital Switch Over (DSO)programme.  The DSO is about migration from the use of analogue to Digital Terrestrial Transmission (DTT) […]

The Independent Corrupt Practises and Other Related Offences Commission(ICPC) has for some time now been investigating the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission(NBC) over alleged misapplication of the N2.5 billion seed money granted by the Federal Government for the Digital Switch Over (DSO)programme.  The DSO is about migration from the use of analogue to Digital Terrestrial Transmission (DTT) in broadcasting which was launched by the Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo in Mpape, Abuja in 2016.

The Federal Government had agreed to recommendation by a white paper which approved that the monopoly hitherto enjoyed by the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) in terrestrial signal distribution be broken by licensing a private outfit for that purpose.

Pinnacle Communications Limited a private Nigerian owned company with years of experience in digital broadcasting won the competitive bid in 2014 to handle the job which it had been doing for over two years now without blemish so far.

The ICPC investigation into how the NBC utilized the seed money of N2.5 billion given by the Federal Government will naturally and logically involve all other parties in the project.  As one of the statutory investigative arms of the government, it is within the purview of the ICPC to investigate and ensure that public funds meant for the purpose of providing quality service (in this case broadcast service delivery) to Nigerians are judiciously expended. In doing so the ICPC must be necessarily professional and guided strictly by the tenets of its stated mission.

Which is why it is disturbing that in launching its investigation into the matter, the ICPC seems to have taken the wrong step. The ICPC through its spokesperson Rasheedat Okuduwa, alleged that the Minister of Information, the supervising ministry was “fraudulently influenced against the provision of the White paper” to release the N2.5 billion to Pinnacle Communications. Apparently the ICPC is fingering the current DG of NBC Ishaq Moddibo Kawu of doing the influencing.

This weighty allegation when looked at critically seeks to accuse and indict both the DG Ishaq Kawu and the information minister Lai Mohammed of collusion in the matter. Is the ICPC implying that both the minister and the DG are wilfully ignorant of the extant provisions of the white paper and to wit the procurement laws of the country especially in a government that stresses the need to comply with due process with regards to public expenditure?

And then the ICPC spokesperson accused Pinnacle Communications Limited, the company duly licensed to handle the digital switch over after a tough competitive bid of being “an unqualified company”.  This a world class company with years of proven professional competence and experience in digital broadcasting which beat nine rival companies for the DSO job following a thorough competitive process in 2014 and has been providing this service since to the Nigerian broadcasting sector without question. In any case the licensing of Pinnacle was in 2014 two full years before the appointment of the current DG of NBC. So how could the current DG and Pinnacle influence one another when both had not met?

Up to a certain point in the ICPC spokesperson’s statement, it was still possible to consider that the ICPC was onto some public good. But the whole thing became muddled and confusing when the spokesperson got lost in confusing the functions of the National Broadcasting Commission with that of the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation. The National Broadcasting Commission is a regulatory body and its relationship with Pinnacle is clearly linear. It sets and regulates standards which every operator in the broadcast sector must comply.  It is the body to which Pinnacle paid the licensing fee to enable it operate.

To miss this simple but relevant distinction between the two bodies as the ICPC spokesperson did in the statement is not only preposterous, but also damnable in view of the confused and misleading impression it created in the general public. And this confusion the ICPC created in its statement is magnified when the ICPC in what is clearly an unforgivable faux pas alluded that Pinnacle was involved in “migration of telephone lines from analogue to digital platforms”.

All this raises concern about the real motive of the ICPC in investigating this matter as opposed to what it tells the public. The statement of the ICPC is strewn with so many misrepresentations and innuendoes in place of facts to be taken as a serious, acceptable investigative work by a body statutorily charged to handle such assignment. The statement shows a lack of basic understanding of the distinctions in the functions of the National Broadcasting Commission and the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission; it confuses the mandate of Pinnacle Communications which sets out to provide platforms for digital broadcast and not transition of telephone lines as erroneously state and it failed to provide a nexus in its insinuation that Pinnacle, DG Ishaq Kawu and the Minister of Information Lai Mohammed were in collusion to misapply the N2.5 billion seed money granted by the Federal Government for digital switch over programme.

It should concern us that ICPC can exhibit such unpardonable sloppiness in its investigation into the matter. There are two ways to look at this. One it may well be that the ICPC knowing  it has no case at all in the matter is nevertheless engaging in an exercise in intimidation on the persons and Pinnacle the company at the centre of it all into forcing them to admit what they did not do so as to provide a dubious justification of its actions. But what should be of more serious concern to us is the fact that by allowing the ICPC action to go unchallenged in the public interest, we are not only allowing miscarriage of Justice on the persons and the company involved, we are also acquiescing in the lowering and disruption in the quality of broadcast services in the country. Which is what will surely be the consequences if we allow the ICPC carry on with this clearly sloppy investigation based not on facts but on misrepresentations and innuendoes.

Lukman wrote this piece from Abuja