Nasarawa: Opposition kicks as state TV fails to cover them

NBS  had a battered image prior to the inauguration of the present APC government of Umaru Tanko Al-Makura in 2011. It was one place the opposition would not go; it was obvious they were not going to get coverage. Many had described the post May 2011 NBS as the campaign headquarters of the then PDP […]

NBS  had a battered image prior to the inauguration of the present APC government of Umaru Tanko Al-Makura in 2011. It was one place the opposition would not go; it was obvious they were not going to get coverage. Many had described the post May 2011 NBS as the campaign headquarters of the then PDP administration of Aliyu Akwe Doma.  
However, the station has attracted a steady level of criticism from the opposition political parties which have alleged that they are been denied coverage of  their campaigns at a time when NBS has allegedly made itself the campaign headquarters of the APC and Al-Makura.  
The PDP, which administrations since the period of the first civilian governor, Abdullahi Adamu had favourable coverage at the detriment of all other political parties, is in the lead of complaints now.  The NBS crew have had to face hostile reception at the PDP secretariat in Lafia. At one time, angry youths there picked on the station’s press crew, beat its reporter and cameraman and chased them out. The angry youths had complained that NBS recorded them and took the video clips to Government House for government to decide on what to do with it. State PDP spokesman, Mark Yohanna  Neto said he had to raise a  petition because the NBS has denied them coverage during their campaigns and other political events, even when its crew attended their events and recorded it. “They will come and record; but what they do with the video clips I don’t know. They  don’t feature us on their programmes, but focus on our past  administrations to campaign against us,” Neto said.
 He said the PDP is preparing a second petition to the NBC in this regard.  This is just as the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) which has emerged as a leading opposition party in the state by virtue of its governorship candidate and former Information Minister, Labaran Maku, has had to raise various complaints. A stakeholder of the party in the state and candidate for Lafia/Obi Federal Constituency, Omar Nurudeen recently complained that  the station had preferred to announce a certain politician as candidate of APGA even when the party has announced Maku as its candidate. He  vowed to petition the NBC against the station’s adverts which announced Mathew Ombugaku as the candidate instead of Maku who was unveiled by the party.
Only in October last year, the NBS had to answer queries from the NBC over a petition by the state House of Assembly which alleged that they were not given coverage during the impeachment saga that rocked  the state then. The station was fined N500,000, part of which has been paid to stop its closure by the regulatory body.  The House, had prior to the impeachment move, chased the NBS crew from covering its proceedings. It summoned and quizzed the General  Manager, over alleged unethical coverage of its proceedings and broadcast of House issues without given the lawmakers benefit of response.  Even within the APC, the station’s coverage of the recently held primaries has attracted complaints. Some APC stakeholders has threatened to petition the NBC. The station’s announcement of a winner in the December 2 APC primary for Lafia-Central,  when the  exercise was disrupted fetched it five petitions from five of the six contestants. They  complained to the Legislative Appeal Panel that the NBS not caring to listen to them went ahead to announce a winner.  The management, recently suspended one the station’s cameramen for covering the violent ridden Lafia Central primaries. The cameraman, Dahiru Hassan is in his second week of suspension now.  This is just as the Director of Marketing, Joseph Saku was queried for allegedly producing a commercial for Rep. David Ombugadu, a serving member of the State House of Assembly seeking  re-election for Akwanga/Nasarawa-Eggon/Wamba on the platform of the PDP.  Some of Saku’s colleagues said while it was wrong of him to violate the provisions of relevant broadcast laws by involving himself in the production of commercials  for the politician, the same management has been legendary  in overlooking similar acts in favour of  the APC.
In defence of the management, the General Manager,  Musa said NBS under his watch should be hailed instead of it been criticized by the opposition and some staff of the station. He said as a lawyer, he knows the law so well and gets worried when it is been breached.  “As the head of a broadcast station, the NBC code on the coverage of political campaigns remained a bible for me in this current electioneering. I will not, having known the position of the law, go into broadcast that breaches the same law,” he said.
One incident has remained historic about the post May 2011 NBS.  Alhaji Musa Ilu Mohammed Ilu, the Director General of Ta’al 2011, campaigners of Al-Makura for the  April 2011 election was in the studios of the NBS on a live phone-in-programme.   As he was talking, criticizing the government of Doma for allegedly lacking in vision, as a result of which Al-Makura came out for 2011 the studio  lights went out curiously. The station’s technical crew claimed the generators went off due to malfunction. But this was after the management had stormed  into the studio and made frantic efforts with sign language to get the anchor of the programme, ‘Issues of the Moment’ to stop Ilu.  The chief campaigner and other guests in the studio had to use their phone light to find their way out of the dark studio.  
The programme was cancelled and the anchor sent on suspension on tromped-up charges  of alleged gross violation of National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) code on the coverage of political campaigns. And Al-Makura was never again, mentioned on NBS.  This compelled him to wage consistent campaign against the station including raising petitions to the NBC. He also used it as a campaign strategy, saying severally that he was going to “fumigate” the entire station once he was elected.
When he  was elected, in about a month, a new General Manager was announced for the station. Yusuf Musa, the very broadcaster who anchored Ilu on the ill-fated 2010 Issues of  the Moment programme was recalled from his suspension, and made the General Manager of the station where he is widely known with the studio name- “Snake.”  
Under his watch NBS has witnessed several levels of transformation to confirm the governor’s vowed commitment to “fumigate” the station. Broadcast has improved to meet NBC regulations. The improvement has been achieved especially with the digitization of the station to comply with the NBC directive which declared that all broadcast stations in the country must go digital before 2015, in accordance with the declaration of the African Communications Commission (ACC), in Nairobi, Kenya.
The NBC  has since October of 2010, hailed the digitization project of the station in Lafia, and substation in Keffi, in what has transformed  transmission from  analogue to digital system of broadcasting. Governor  Al-Makura, in 2011 visited Pinnacle Harris Communications
 Limited, leading manufacturers of broadcasting equipment, at their headquarters in Illinois, in Chicago, United State of America (USA), and invited them to visit his state,  where a contract of N2.1 billion was signed for the execution of the digital system, which was commissioned in May of 2010.
 Mrs. Francisca Aiyetan, Director of the Abuja zone of the NBC, who led a delegation on inspection of the main station in Lafia, and later the substation in Keffi, commended the state government for the project, which she said has upgraded broadcasting services there to meet international best  practice.
The station’s GM said under his watch, NBS does not discriminate, and that he would not hesitate to sanction any staff that violates the NBC code in compliance with the ethics on broadcasting. He said he has had to face blackmail from the opposition over fair and balanced broadcasting.  “NBS in previous periods of Adamu and Doma were not only attack dogs of the PDP, but denied listeners broadcast of events of the oppositions”, the GM said.