Nigeria's federal court dismisses country's controversial fine of BBC News Africa's banditry documentary

by Thinus Ferreira

Nigeria's Federal High Court in Lagos has set aside the N5 million fines the country's controversial National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) slapped on Trust Television Network, MultiChoice's DStv, TStv and StarTimes Nigeria which all aired the BBC News Africa documentary "Bandit warlords of Zamfara" in the BBC Africa Eye programme in 2022.

The draconian NBC slapped Trust Television Network, as well as several other broadcasters in Nigeria with hefty fines for broadcasting a documentary from BBC News Africa on its BBC Africa Eye documentary programme, entitled "Bandit warlords of Zamfara" in 2022.

Besides Trust Television Network, the NBC fined MultiChoice and BBC News Africa airing the documentary on DStv, TelCom Satellite Limited running the now-defunct TStv, and NTA StarTimes Limited running StarTimes Nigeria which all showed the documentary. 

The NBC wrongly claimed that news and documentaries about crime and banditry in Nigeria, broadcast on television, "undermined national security and contravened the Nigerian broadcasting code".

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) and Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) took the NBC to court and filed a lawsuit against NBC as well as the Nigerian president and the country's caustic and clueless former information minister, Lai Mohammed.

The organisations wanted the court to declare "that the imposition of fines on the media houses is unlawful and amounts to a breach of legality, necessity, proportionality principles".

Justice Nicholas Oweibo ruled that the overreaching NBC lacks the legal power and authority to impose fines unlawfully and unilaterally on broadcasters or suspensions, or withdrawals of licences "or any form of punishment whatsoever on independent media houses for promoting access to diverse information on issues of public importance".

"A declaration is, hereby made that the provisions of the National Broadcasting Commission Act and the Nigerian Broadcasting Code which are arbitrarily being used by the defendants to sanction, harass, intimidate and restrict the independent media houses are inconsistent and incompatible with the Nigerian Constitution," he ruled. 

ALSO READ: Nigeria fines MultiChoice, StarTimes and TStv over R200 000 for airing BBC Africa Eye investigative documentary on Nigerian gangs.

BBC News investigation finds televangelist T.B. Joshua over decades raped, tortured, whipped and chained worshippers forced to undergo multiple abortions.

by Thinus Ferreira

A shocking investigation by BBC News in Africa is revealing that the late televangelist T.B. Joshua whose Emmanuel TV channel is shutting down on 17 January on pay-TV, over a period of decades raped, assaulted, tortured, whipped and chained worshippers in a secret compound in Lagos, Nigeria where he also ordered forced abortions.

BBC Africa's Africa Eye investigative unit did a 2-year investigation unearthing the shocking and numerous atrocities committed by the televangelist of the Synagogue Church of All Nations. 

The Synagogue Church of All Nations didn't respond to the allegations unearthed by BBC News' Africa Eye of T.B. Joshua who died in 2021.

The BBC's investigation found that T.B. Joshua carried out physical violence and torture - including child abuse and people who were whipped and chained - abuse corroborated by dozens of eyewitness accounts.

Multiple women on the record said they were brutally raped by T.B. Joshua - some for years in his secret compound in Lagos, Nigeria. Multiple women say they were forced to undergo abortions inside the church, with one woman saying she was forced into 5 abortions. 

One woman from Namibia was 17 when T.B. Joshua raped her the first time and she subsequently had 5 abortions.

Multiple witnesses have come forward to explain how T.B. Joshua did hoax "miracle healings" which were faked for the broadcasts on Emmanuel TV to viewers watching across the world.

ALSO READ: Emmanuel TV going dark on MultiChoice's DStv.

Nigeria fines MultiChoice, StarTimes and TStv over R200 000 for airing BBC Africa Eye investigative documentary on Nigerian gangs.

by Thinus Ferreira

Nigeria has fined MultiChoice's DStv, China's StarTimes and TelCom's TSTV over R200 000 each for broadcasting the insightful "Bandit warlords of Zamfara" documentary as part of the BBC's BBC Africa Eye investigative news programme.

In a statement from Nigeria's National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), it announced that it has "imposed a N5 million (R201 467) sanction, each" on MultiChoice Nigeria, StarTimes Nigeria and TelCom Satellite Ltd., claiming that the BBC Africa Eye episode "glorified the activities of bandits and undermines national security in Nigeria".

Another Nigerian TV channel, Trust TV, was also fined the same amount for its own news documentary about the same topic entitled "Nigeria's banditry - The Inside Story".

BBC Africa Eye as an investigative TV news programme is broadcast on the BBC's BBC World News channel carried on various satellite pay-TV services throughout sub-Saharan Africa, and is shown on various terrestrial TV channels across African nations as part of syndicated BBC News content deals.  

It's not yet clear whether MultiChoice Nigeria, StarTimes Nigeria, TelCom or Trust TV will appeal the fines for broadcasting the deeply sourced and fact-filled documentaries bringing viewers first-hand accounts and footage of the criminal gangs in northeast Nigeria who are raiding villages, attacking drivers, abducting schoolchildren and killing people.

The hourlong BBC Africa Eye documentary with reporter Yusuf Anka and produced and directed by Kai Lawrence and Daniel Adamson, with Tom Watson as BBC Africa Eye editor and Marc Perkins as head of investigations, has already been watched over a million times on YouTube.

In "Bandit warlords of Zamfara", as told through the eyes of a Nigerian law student living in Zamfara and who has first-hand experience of the crime and violence perpetrated by the gangs, the BBC documentary shows the bodies of those killed - including children - and includes interviews with gang leaders as well as victims.

The NBC, in its statement about the imposed fines for credible news reporting content, claims that "While appreciating the need of educating, informing and enlightening the public on issues bordering on developments and happenings within and outside of the country, the commission wishes to seize this opportunity to advise broadcasters to be circumspect and deliberate in the choice and carriage of content deleterious to Nigeria's national security".

According to the NBC, the BBC Africa Eye documentary contravened regulations that states "no broadcast shall encourage or incite to crime" and that broadcasters must "ensure that law enforcement is upheld at all times in a manner depicting that law and order are socially superior to, or more desirable than crime or anarchy".

The pay-TV operators have to pay the fines before 30 August with the NBC warning them "to desist from falling into antics of using their platforms to promote and glamourise subversive elements and their activities".