In a move that may be described as sparing a raging, instant-death epidemic to lavish care on benign scabies, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has vowed that the Federal Government would sanction the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Trust TV for airing some documentaries recently, which the minister claimed glorified terrorism and banditry in Nigeria.
Mohammed, who spoke with the media in Abuja on Thursday, 28 July, 2022, alleged that a recent documentary by the BBC Africa Eye in which interviews were granted to bandit warlords and terror gangs was unprofessional and promoted terror in the country, claiming the BBC would not have broadcast same documentary in its home country in the United Kingdom (UK).
The minister also knocked Trust TV, owned by Media Trust Ltd publishers of the Daily Trust Newspaper, for granting interview to a bandit kingpin, Shehu Rekeb, an action Mohammed also alleged promoted terrorism in Nigeria.
To the minister, both the BBC and Trust TV have turned accomplices to terrorists and bandits, stressing that Nigeria Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has been directed to investigate and sanction them.
His words: “There is a regulatory body regulating broadcasting which is the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission (NBC) and they are also aware of these two incidents.
“They are looking at which part of the Broadcasting Code that has been violated by the BBC and Trust TV.
“Media is the oxygen that terrorists and bandits use to breathe. When otherwise reputable platforms like BBC can give their platform to terrorists showing their faces as if they are Nollywood stars, it is unfortunate.
“I want to assure them that they will not get away with it, appropriate sanctions will be meted to both the BBC and the Trust TV. Let me assure you that they will not get away with the naked glorification of terrorism and banditry in Nigeria.”
Speaking specifically of the BBC, Mohammed said: “If they are not registered in Nigeria and they are only sending their signals to Nigeria, we will ask them to stop sending the signals. I know that during the IRA days, the BBC will not dare do what they are doing now in Nigeria. It is because there is a country called Nigeria that they are operating here.”
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