Guardian

THE news filtered in as rumour coming a couple of hours after the outgoing Director General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Eng. Yomi Bolarinwa, chaired a forum in Lagos. None within the airwaves’ regulatory agency family was willing to confirm or comment on the change of baton until the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) broke the news.

And surprisingly, Mr. Emeka Mba was announced as the new DG of NBC. Mba, until late last year, was the DG of National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB). Ironically, the Thursday forum in Lagos was staged under the umbrella team of regulatory agencies in the creative industry in Nigeria tagged The QUARTET, comprising Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC), Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC), NBC and NFVCB, an indication that Bolarinwa and Mba had, for years, worked together as partners in progress mobilising resources, human and material for the development of television and entertainment industry.

In fact, it has become a tradition among the leadership of the four agencies to attend and lend support whenever any of the agencies is organising event outside the mandate of the QUARTET. For instance, in 2011, when NBC organised a retreat for the review of the Nigerian Broadcasting Code in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state, the duo of Afolabi Adesanya (NFC) and Mba were present as special guests.

Could Mba’s appointment be a stab on the back of Bolarinwa, most importantly when he still had almost one year to complete his first term in office? Is the appointment politically motivated? Does it have ethnic colouration? What is the antecedent of Mba to have merited the new post after serving as the DG of NFVCB for almost eight years? Why does government have to recycle somebody who had headed a similar federal parastatal for two terms as DG of NBC at this time of transiting to digital broadcasting?

Assuming it’s the turn of Ndigbo to have a taste of the NBC top job, especially now that the principle of ‘turn by turn’ has become a critical factor in appointment, does it mean that Mba is the only qualified person among Igbo nation? These are some of the posers his choice has generated, and his disposition to the new assignment in the next few months will certainly provide answers.

But for him, sitting at the driver’s side of a commission charged with the mandate of ensuring people’s right to quality broadcasting should be a familiar terrain, especially after working with Multi-choice as well as the attempt, in collaboration with other investors, to set up an indigenous pay TV company, HiTV.

The Guardian learnt that the major reason he was picked for the NBC job was his knowledge in digital broadcasting, as well as managerial acumen to manage men and materials judiciously. But opinion is already divided on these attributes because Nigeria’s trouble with transition to digital broadcasting has largely been that of political will on the part of government to take right decision at the right time. And till date, his tenure at censor’s board generated so much controversy than resolving any.

In taking a cursory look at his tenure at Censor’s board, he could not be rated to have performed above average considering the fact that his major project for the two terms he served as DG did not yield much fruit. The distribution framework, which was his primary and only project on paper is regarded as excellent but it failed to make real impact and its realisation was zero. Many stakeholders in the film industry continue to lament that distribution is the major reason the industry has failed to move to its next level. And with the distribution framework, many had thought that the battle would be over but it did not yield fruit. The beauty of the project is in the paper work, and far from practitioners’ yearning.

Also, his collaboration with other investors that gave birth to HiTV didn’t turn out a positive story, as the company only existed for a few years before it collapsed with subscription money of thousands of Nigerians going down with the company’s collapse. As a person with vested interest in pay television to pilot the digitalization and regulate the entire broadcasting industry, will Mba be a fair umpire? This is why some stakeholders at unsure if he is truly the man that should be picked to serve.

In commenting on the issues, Executive Director, Media Rights Agenda, Edetaen Ojo, said, “The first point that needs to be made is that there are major structural and fundamental defects in the processes of appointment and removal of the Director-General of the commission.

“These defects have to be corrected through legislative reform.  The current process simply cannot guarantee the independence of the commission.  It is a well-established principle under international law that institutions, which exercise regulatory powers over the media, should be independent of political influences.

“Regrettably, the current process of appointment or removal of the Director-General makes the occupant of the office as well as the commission itself vulnerable and susceptible to political manipulation and influences.”

He noted that under the current arrangement, the Director-General had no security of tenure and does not have clearly defined or certain conditions of service because Section 5(5) of the National Broadcasting Commission Act states that “the Director-General shall hold office in the first instance for a period of five years and shall be eligible for re-appointment for such further periods as the President may, from time to time, determine.”

This, to him, is a clear invitation for any Director-General who hopes to be re-appointed to do the bidding of the President and an enormous power placed in the hands of the President to exercise full and unqualified control over the Chief Executive of the commission.

“To worsen the situation, section 5(6) of the NBC Act goes further to provide that “the Director-General shall hold office on such terms as to emoluments and otherwise as may be specified in his letter of appointment and as may, from time to time, be approved by the President.”

To the MRA head, this also gives the President enormous discretionary powers, which are not circumscribed by any guidelines to determine the salary and allowances of the Director-General and to vary them as he pleases.

Ojo stated, “These are clearly arbitrary powers and like most arbitrary powers, subject to abuse. This situation obviously puts the Director-General in an untenable position where he is vulnerable to political pressure to act in accordance with the wishes or dictates of the President.

“With regards to removal from office, Section 4(4) of the NBC Act stipulates that “A member of the Commission may be removed from office by the President if he is satisfied that it is not in the interest of the Commission or the interest of the public that he should continue in office.” This provision also applies to the Director-General of the Commission by virtue of Section 3(c ).”

He also said there were also very broad and discretionary powers that were subject to abuse and may be applied for purely political reasons, since the Act makes no attempt to define “public interest”, the Director-General can be removed for virtually any reason or for no reason at all.

ON what might have motivated Mba’s appointment, Ojo said, “It is difficult for me to make an objective assessment about whether Emeka Mba is the right choice since I do not know him well. But I think the best way to ensure that the right person is appointed always is to reform the legal framework and adopt an open and transparent process of appointment which will provide an opportunity for industry stakeholders to be involved in the selection process and to provide information about the competence or otherwise of any proposed candidate.

“I believe that at this point in time, the head of the regulatory body for broadcasting should be someone with considerable knowledge of and experience in the broadcast sector, who has a good understanding of the issues and challenges relevant to the sector and has ideas about how those issues might be resolved.

“We have long advocated a system where a nominee for the office goes through a confirmation hearing. This will provide a platform for assessing the nominee’s knowledge and understanding of the relevant issues as well as his or her ideas and proposals for taking the broadcast industry in Nigeria forward”.

A professor of Mass Communication at the University of Lagos, Lai Oso said Bolarinwa’s removal a few months before the expiration of his tenure was part of the arbitrariness with which Nigeria ran its government and institutions, adding, “So, it is part of the arbitrariness in government.”

On whether the change in NBC leadership might slow down the digitalization project since in Nigeria a new government always saw things differently, Oso said, “If institutions are supposed to run as they should run, removing one person should not disrupt the running of the organisation. So, I do not think that should be a problem. The main problem should be the appointment and removal of government officials.”

While commenting on the new appointment, Oso said that in Nigeria things worked on a patronage system, and would not want to review the appointment of the new DG because he did not know the criteria used by government in picking him neither did he have an insight to the personality of the new helmsman.

However, former President, Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), Mallam Garba Shehu argued that the change in the leadership of NBC was long overdue, saying, “I said it before that the NBC under Bolarinwa was being run with a death-wish for the private radio. Thank God that he is leaving just one station, Wazobia in Kano in the morgue. The recent fine of N2 million slapped on Liberty Radio in Kaduna for airing an opinion criticising the Minister of Information’s media tour is the most misguided, most bizarre action a regulator anywhere could ever take.”

Continuing, Shehu added, “If my wish has been the need for a change of leadership at the NBC, I cannot say the same for the appointment of a censor to head the regulatory agency. Certainly, Emeka Mba should approach his new job with a different frame of mind than he did the censorship board. It is offensive to the sensibilities of believers in Press Freedom for a censor to be made to run the NBC. But it is what Mba does at the NBC, in the final analysis, that will determine if he is at the wrong place.”

According to the journalist-turned politician who has been serving as spokesperson for the former Vice President Atiku Abubakr, “NBC is fortunate to have had visionary managers at commencement. The challenge is for a serious government to look around to find such type of managers and have them run the NBC.”

Former Executive Director of Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, (FRCN), Mr. Kevin Ejiofor, said the question of whether Mba was the right person for the job should not arise, noting, “He has a strong background in broadcasting and media. Most importantly, NBC has a crop of strong, exciting and competent people in all departments. Unless you actually bring a complete fool into the place, I do not see why he should not work.

“The outgoing DG did an excellent job and set up a team, which I have great respect for. And Mba with his background in media and broadcasting should not have problems continuing from where Bolarinwa stopped. To be quite frank with you, I called the former DG and congratulated him on his tenure. I think it was a fantastic tenure he had. I also called Mba to wish him luck and tell him that as far as I am aware, the team at NBC, with the experience and professionalism based on the things that they have done, is good”.