NBC cautions radio station over alleged partisanship

National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) yesterday stated that the Ekiti Radio had become highly unprofessional and dangerously partisan in its reportage of the gubernatorial democratic process in the state.

NCB’s Director General, Is’haq Modibbo Kawu, disclosed this in a statement yesterday.

The commission, which queried the station’s General Manager, Donald Olajide Falayi, who also doubles as the spokesman of the Ayo Fayose campaign organisation, said it was a breach of Section 5.2.18 of the Broadcasting Code.

The code states: “While a broadcast producer may interact with politicians in the course of his professional duties, this shall not be such, as to lead to the belief, that he is either a member or sympathiser of any political party.”
 
The station, according to NBC, has consistently refused to balance its political programmes, often patronising the state Governor and his party alone in breach of Section 7.6.8. 
 
NBC stressed that the most recent infraction was the broadcast inciting citizens of Ekiti State not to welcome President Muhammadu Buhari to the state.  

“We find this as a breach of Section 5.2.7 of the Code and 5.2.8. A broadcaster shall, in using political material for news, avoid taking inflammatory and divisive matter in its provocative form.” NCB said in a statement by its Director General, Is’haq Modibbo Kawu.