The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), has asked Nigerians not to pay heed to Radio Biafra’s transmission with its seditious content, promising to track down and punish those behind the station..
NBC’s Director of Public Affairs, Alhaji Awwalu Salihu, in a statement in Abuja on Friday, said that the station was operating in breach of Nigerian laws.
“The commission has become aware of a pirate radio station transmitting seditious and divisive content contrary to the provisions of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code and law,” he said in the statement.
Salihu enjoined the Nigerian public to “ignore the inflammatory content of the broadcast and continue to work toward a strong, united and prosperous nation.”
He said the Commission was already working in conjunction with security forces to track the source of the broadcast.
The station which started broadcasting It would be recalled that Biafra was the name of the secessionist Republic in South Eastern Nigeria which attempted to break away from the country,culminating in a 30-month civil war.
The Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), a group largely comprising of the Igbo people of the area, has been in the forefront of the campaign to seceed from Nigeria.
The radio station began operations sometimes in early May from an unknown location believed to be in Rivers State with the name ‘Radio Biafra’, on 88.0Fm Channel.
According to intial reports on the station, the Radio Biafra has only one familiar voice, who calls himself ‘Director’. He frequently refers to the listeners as the Indigenous People of Biafra.
The voice, according to the reports, consistently makes comments pitching the North and the West against the Niger-Delta, stressing people of the Niger-Delta were being “enslaved in Nigeria” which he refers to as a “zoo”.
In one of such earlier reports, the station took a swipe on the Oba of Lagos, HRM Rilwan Akinolu for his tirade on the Igbo community in Lagos in the run-off to the Governorship election in the state.
The anonymous voice on Radio Biafra reportedly said words like ‘non-indigene’ should not be used in a country that claims it is united.
“See ordinary Oba Akinolu calling you people non-indigene in your own country. If you are travelling from Lagos through the Lagos-Ibadan express way, you will see black pipelines. They are all oil pipelines. The oil is coming from Biafra land to Yoruba land, yet they call you non-indigenes.
“When it comes to the issue of oil, we are one Nigeria but when it is time for the Igbos to vote and look after their families, they turn to non-indigenes”.
