The Court of Appeal in Abuja has dismissed appeal by the National Broadcasting Commission to overturn a Federal High Court judgment barring it from imposing fines on radio and television stations.
The appellate court, in an unanimous ruling led by Justice Jane Inyang on Wednesday, declared NBC’s notice of appeal as “fundamentally defective” and legally incompetent.
Mrs Inyang identified a critical discrepancy in the identity of the parties involved.
According to the ruling, while the case at the Federal High Court was between the Incorporated Trustees of Media Rights Agenda and the National Broadcasting Commission, the notice of appeal listed the appellant as the “Nigerian Broadcasting Commission,” a different legal entity.
The judge stated that the inconsistency constituted a fundamental defect that deprived the court of jurisdiction to hear the appeal.
“The notice of appeal and the accompanying briefs are fundamentally defective and do not and cannot confer jurisdiction on this court to hear and determine the appeal,” the judge ruled.
Stressing that a valid notice of appeal is the foundation of any appeal and a prerequisite for the exercise of appellate jurisdiction, the court ruled that there was “no appeal in fact and in law” before it and struck out the case for incompetence.
The latest ruling came against the backdrop of a January 17, 2024 judgement by Justice Rita Ofili-Ajumogobia, that the NBC acted unlawfully and unconstitutionally when it imposed N5 million fines on MultiChoice Nigeria Limited (DStv), TelCom Satellite Limited (TStv), Trust TV Network Limited and NTA StarTimes Limited in August 2022.
The sanctions were imposed after the broadcasters aired documentaries which highlighted banditry and insecurity in Zamfara State, which the NBC claimed undermined national security.
Justice Ofili-Ajumogobia further noted that the fines violated the constitutional right to freedom of expression, including the right of citizens to receive information without interference, as contained in Section 39 of the Constitution and Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
The latest ruling highlighted another setback for the NBC in its bid to regulate operations of broadcasting stations in the country.