Agency Report
The National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, has disclosed plans to establish an independent tribunal to hear cases involving broadcast violations.
NBC Director-General, Dr Charles Ebuebu, said the tribunal would comprise retired judges and other independent officials to ensure fairness and transparency in handling cases involving erring broadcasters.
Speaking in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, on Sunday in Abuja, Ebuebu also confirmed that the commission would appeal court judgments restricting its powers to impose financial sanctions on broadcast stations.
He clarified that the courts did not strip the NBC of its regulatory powers but only ruled that the commission could not act as both investigator and judge in cases involving monetary penalties.
“The court didn’t say NBC cannot sanction. It only said you cannot be a judge and jury in your own case,” he said.
According to him, the court’s decision relates specifically to financial sanctions, which it considered similar to criminal penalties requiring an independent adjudicatory process.
Ebuebu, however, maintained that administrative fines are different from criminal fines, stressing that the commission disagrees with the court’s interpretation.
“There’s a difference between a criminal fine and an administrative fine. That is why we have appealed the court’s decisions,” he added.
The NBC boss explained that the proposed tribunal would operate independently of the commission within the existing regulatory framework.
He likened the arrangement to the Federal Road Safety Corps’ mobile court system, where offenders are tried before an independent tribunal before sanctions are imposed.
“If you’re caught, you go before a tribunal or a mobile court. You don’t really have to go before a fully-fledged magistrate court,” he said.
Ebuebu warned that removing the commission’s sanctioning powers could weaken broadcast regulation, noting that some stations ignore warning letters until penalties are imposed.
“We don’t want to go from warning letters to withdrawing a licence. That’s arbitrary. There must be a process, and we are going back to court to appeal that decision,” he said.
Kano Times recalls that the Federal High Court in Abuja, in May 2023, ruled that the NBC lacked the power to unilaterally impose financial sanctions on broadcast stations without judicial intervention, declaring such action a breach of the right to fair hearing.
The Court of Appeal, on April 2, 2026, upheld the judgment, dismissing the commission’s appeal and affirming that the NBC cannot impose financial penalties on broadcasters under the current legal framework.
NAN
