By Donu Kogbara
My dear friend, Henry Abebe, who quietly passed away a few days ago in an Abuja hospital after a bout of ill health, is being buried today.

Henry was the adored son of Mrs Theresa Abebe and her husband, Dr Christopher Abebe – a distinguished pioneering executive who served as the first indigenous Chairman of the famous United Africa Company, UAC.

Henry’s elder sister, Stella, went on to marry General Olusegun Obasanjo; and I first met him when he was the First Lady of Nigeria’s brother-in-law.

It was difficult to believe that he had such lofty family connections because he was so modest, down-to-earth, normal and nice. Airs and graces were totally alien to his personality. Arrogance and snobbery were not on his agenda.

Henry Abebe

Because he was very polished, it was obvious to anyone who encountered him that he wasn’t the product of an average home. But he never showed off or boasted about his social credentials or his access to the corridors of power.

He didn’t carry on like a brattish princeling. He didn’t demand deference or any special attention. He wasn’t obsessed with money or aggressively acquisitive. He didn’t behave as if he regarded expensive luxuries as his divine right.

If I hadn’t been told about Henry’s background before I was introduced to him, I would never have guessed that he had a sibling who happened to be a presidential spouse or an especially successful dad who had made history.

When he visited my family home in Port Harcourt, my mother was highly impressed by his humility, respectfulness and charm and never tired of saying that his parents had done a fantastic job of bringing him up.

Henry was so good-looking that some of us nicknamed him “Handsome Henry”. But he didn’t prance around as if he thought he was God’s Gift to the female gender and didn’t crudely chase every pretty woman he came across.

He was fun to be with and interesting to talk to and unusually caring and generous. When he heard that I had a problem, he kindly offered – without any prompting from my end – to help me solve it; and I will never forget him seizing the microphone from the singer in a band that was entertaining us at a party, so he could croon a romantic ballad to honour his beautiful wife, Beatrice.

In a nutshell, Henry was a complete gentleman who touched the lives of so many people. May he rest in perfect peace. My heart goes out to Beatrice, their offspring and every other member of the esteemed Abebe clan.

Abuse of power

I have a friend who owns a radio station. He sent me an article that was critical of the National Broadcasting Commission. As a media person, I am concerned about any erosion of press freedom; and I’ve decided to publish excerpts (some slightly paraphrased).

One of the greatest achievements of the military in Nigeria, the liberalisation of the airwaves through the issuance of licenses to independent broadcasters, is under threat. The threat is from the increasing politicisation of the regulator, the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC.

Tragically, for Nigeria, it is an elected, “democratic” government that is engendering the demise of independent broadcasting.

NBC has today transformed from a regulator of a vibrant broadcast industry into a prefect, serving to secure and protect regime interests and nothing more.

Every three years, they statutorily called broadcast station owners to a roundtable to review its code. A democratic engagement for the renewal of the code under professional industry managers such as Dr. Tom Adaba, as DG has, under this era of transformation become something akin to the issuance of Fatwas.

Industry operators lament that these consultative meetings have become a hush up. After going through the motions, the “all-Powerful” NBC rams down the throats of the broadcasters a “pocket communiqué” prepared beforehand with serious consequences that everyone has to live with.

Without a law backing their promulgation, these codes or Fatwas assume the force of law and are used to levy fines, suspend programmes and issue threats of the withdrawal of licenses.

The independent broadcasters who are relatively new to an industry that government has managed and controlled since the coming of the radio are openly crying out that they are getting the short end of the stick.

The NBC metes out harsh treatment to any station that airs words that President Jonathan would not like to hear. The unspoken new rule is: say nothing, do nothing to cause the President constipation.

One of the nine radio stations in Kano reported that they had been queried between 25 to 30 times in the last six months on flimsy matters using these unilateral codes.  

Another radio station in Kaduna was fined N2 million by the NBC. What did they do? The Minister of Information was leading journalists to their city on a projects inspection tour and in the course of a phone-in programme, a listener asked this important question: Wouldn’t it make sense for his state government to use the N150 million voted for the hosting of the Minister’s group for the provision of water in some communities that are direly in need? The fine was to punish the station for airing the question.

Meanwhile, an FM station in Abuja had a popular weekly review programme suspended simply because the government is “constantly getting a bashing”.

The conclusion of the Northern independent broadcasters, at the end of this summit was that government wants to run them out of business ahead of the 2015 election in which Dr. Jonathan is expected to be a candidate.

Regulation for the sake of ensuring sanity in an industry that can cause irredeemable injury in a matter of seconds can be, and is indeed justified. It is wrong however where politics and regime protection are the motives.

The Constitution left no ambiguity on the issue of the freedom to hold and express opinions where it said: “Every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference.”   

At the rate the NBC is issuing indiscriminate Fatwas, fines and suspending programmes amongst independent radio and TV stations, especially in the North where opposition to Dr. Jonathan is at its highest, it is not far-fetched to say that the broadcast industry is just one inch from paralysis.