Posted by By CHRISTIAN ITA on
A rare window has been opened into secret moves by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to curtail media freedom even while posing as an apostle of free media.
•Attorney General faults reasons cited against DAAR
A rare window has been opened into secret moves by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to curtail media freedom even while posing as an apostle of free media.
A memo unearthed by Sunday Sun shows how Obasanjo in 2001 whimsically revoked a licence issued to DAAR Communication, owners of Africa Independent Television (AIT) and Raypower by the military administration of General Sani Abacha in 1995 to operate a network service in the country.
The official line sold to the public was that the decision was taken because DARR Communication was in breach of section 9(5) of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) Act No 55 of 1999.
Sunday Sun was, however, reliably informed that the real reason was that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) wanted the growing influence of the private media organisation curtailed.
Section 9(5) of the NBC Act No 55 of 1999 provides that 'it shall be illegal for any person to have controlling shares in more than two of each of the broadcast sectors of the transmission."
NBC claimed that having had controlling shares in Raypower 1 and 2 and AIT in Lagos and Abuja, DARR Communications had breached the provisions of the NBC Act.
But Sunday Sun can reveal that the aforesaid reason given by the NBC in 2001 was just an official cover to a decision taken by the Obasanjo's kitchen cabinet consisting of the likes of Professor Jerry Gana, then Information Minister and Secretary of PDP Board of Trustees.
At the meeting of the PDP hierarchs, the then Information Minister was reportedly mandated to write a memo to Obasanjo and give some phony reasons to justify that decision.
On August 10, 2001, Gana, in compliance with the decision of his party forwarded a memo to Obasanjo. It got to the President's office four days later.
In the memo, Gana said based on the advice of the NBC, there was the need to weigh the licence granted AIT against 'national interest and social responsibility."
The former secretary of the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the PDP proceeded to advise Obasanjo to note 'that well considered technical and professional advice indicates that to allow a private Broadcasting House to operate a network in the country and to operate a global satellite transmission is not in the best public interest."
He, therefore, advised Obasanjo to reject the request by DARR Communications for approval to commence a network service of the AIT.
'Consequently, Mr. President is invited to approve that the application of DARR Communications to commence a network service of AIT television be rejected," the memo from Gana had read in parts.
Three days after receiving the memo, precisely on August 17, Obasanjo minuted on it thus: 'Your recommendation is hereby approved."
Curiously, in its letter to DARR Communications conveying the rejection of its request for network broadcast, NBC claimed that the decision was based on alleged infringement of its Act by the organisation.
There was no mention of the reasons stated in Gana's memo to Obasanjo on why the request had to be rejected.
However, even the plank on which the NBC said it based is decision has been described as wrong by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Chief Mike Aondoakaa.
Aondoakaa, acting on the request by DARR Communication for the restoration of the approval granted it in 1995 to operate a network service, had in a memo dated November 14, 2007 to the Minister for Information, contended that 'the provisions of section 9(5) of the National Broadcasting Commission Act cannot be relied upon by the National Broadcasting Commission to claim that DARR Communication has breached the provisions of the Act."
The Attorney General further opined that 'the purported revocation of the Company's licence cannot be justified as the procedure enumerated schedule of the Act, has not been complied with."
He, therefore, advised that 'DARR Communication Plc should be allowed to continue its operation unhindered as it has not breached any provisions of the law or the conditions of the licence granted it in 1995."