By YUSUF ABUBAKAR

Broadcast industry regulator, National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), has come down hard on Channels TV for interviewing the spokesman of the secessionist Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Comrade Emma Powerful.

According to a strongly-worded letter from NBC to the management of Channels, the interview hosted by Seun Okinbaloye on a programme, “Politics Today” on Sunday night was in contravention of several of the broadcast codes and extant laws of the land.

“In the programme a so called new leader or IBOP made several secessionist and inciting declarations or air without caution or reprimand by your station. He also made derogatory, false and misleading statements about the Nigerian Army.

“This is reprehensible especially that IPOB remains a proscribed organisation as pronounced by the law courts of the land. This much Channels ought to know and respect,” the letter signed by NBC Acting Director General, Prof Armstrong Idachaba, said.

It cited sections 3.11.1(b) and 5.4.3 of the Nigerian Broadcasting Code as having been violated.

NBC said that Channels was now liable to the suspension of its licence and a fine of N5 million provided in Section 15 of the code.

It directed the immediate cessation of the programme and cautioned that the station owes the country the “responsibility for a true professional and ethically guided Broadcasting especially at times of crisis.”