By Tunde Sholanke
The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has ordered broadcasting stations in Nigeria to stop the use of political ads with kids as models and characters to avoid being sanctioned.
According to the Commission,such actions are against the country’s broadcasting code.
Balarabe Ilelah, the NBC Director-General,spoke during a stakeholders’ meeting in Abuja ,where she also charges broadcast stations in the country to reject any content that portrays children in political ads.
There has been a rising trend in the usage of children in political advertisements by politicians and cautioned that such adverts are in negation to section 7.7.1 (d) of the code,he noted.
He added:“Instead of developing local content, some broadcasters still rely on foreign children’s content, particularly cartoons which often are laced with themes of violence and immorality. This provision is grossly violated as the commission had clearly established this through programme audits it regularly undertakes”
He implored the participants to critically appraise the performance of broadcasters in the area of children programming to come up with a holistic policy direction while calling on broadcasting stations to devote 10 per cent of their daily airtime to children’s programmes to promote morality.
“NBC is deeply concerned about how some provisions under Chapter Four of the NBC code are being ignored or deliberately violated by broadcast outfits. Let me refer you to Section 4.2.2 (k) which requires broadcasters to devote at least 10 per cent of their total airtime to children’s programmes,”he said.
Dr. Kolawole Agatha, the National Programme Coordinator, Africa Project who represented Ms. Vanessa Phala, the Country Director, International Labour Organisation, Country Office for Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
She urged relevant authorities to urgently protect children rights and restore their childhood from every form of abuse being meted children such as slavery, forced labour and trafficking.
Speaking, Dr. Garba Abari, the Director-General, National Orientation Agency on his part said that the stakeholder’s conversation was essentially to mobilise efforts to campaign for the elimination of child labour in the country which he described as an aberration anywhere in the world that ought not to be tolerated.
He explained that the illicit practice “strips children of their dignity, denies them the right to education, and exposes them to harmful and hazardous conditions.
