NGE condemns threat order by NBC to shut down Channels TV

By Uthman Salami

The Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) has condemned the National Broadcasting commission’s order to shut down the operation of the Channels Television for granting an interview with the spokesperson of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Mr. Emmanuel Powerful Yesterday during one of her programs ‘Politics Today.’

This was disclosed in a letter jointly signed by the body’s President and its General Secretary, Mr. Mustapha Isa and Mrs. Mary Atolagbe yesterday.

The NGE expressed that it “will not stand by and watch media houses being threatened by regulating in the country.”

The body further emphasised the danger of gagging the press and stiffening its freedom so much so that media houses now operate in fear and panic of obnoxious sanctions.

The statement added that the NGE “stands with Channels and will go to any length to defend press freedom in the country.”

NGE however accuses the NBC of being “guilty of  double standards because stations that carried Sheikh Gumi’s parley with terrorists in their camps, were not sanctioned  by the commission.”

In the statement the body advised that “the NBC should jettison the practice of issuing threats to broadcast stations  over matters that could easily be  dealt with through dialogue.”

It warned NBC that incessant threat of suspension of Media houses over trivial issues  will truncate press freedom and thereby make the country’s democracy meaningless and unattainable.