Anti corruption NGO accuses NBC DG, Kawu of radio license racketeering … Petitions Buhari

The embattled NBC DG, Modibbo Kawu who is standing trial in a federal high Court for fraud, conspired with others in the Villa to award his own private company six private radio broadcasting licenses in Kaduna, Lagos, Abuja, Ilorin and other cities.

In a petition to President Buhari, which was also published in Vanguard Newspaper on Friday, May 24, 2019, and backed by a sworn affidavit deposed by chairman of an NGO, Coalition Against Corruption and Bad Governance (CACOBAG), Mr. Toyin Raheem, the group called on the president to probe the license racketeering at the National Broadcasting Commission.

Information provided by the group confirmed that the DG Mr. Kawu who before his appointment as DG ran a private media consultancy firm known as Word Sound and Vision (WSV) allocated six slots of Radio licenses to his private company.

See attached copy of approved licenses.

Checks on his Facebook and other publicly available documents confirm his last job was founder and chief executive of WSV, which is described as a “complete media outfit that cuts across print, radio and television”.
Despite currently being prosecuted along with others in court by the ICPC over a N2.5 billion fraud case, Mr. Kawu is still in office as substantive chief executive officer of the NBC and may be providing for himself some sort of safe landing with the award to himself six prime radio license slots in Abuja, Lagos, Kaduna, Kano and two in Ilorin, Kwara state.

Industry watchers describe the actions of the DG as not only appalling and a clear breach of the public service rules as well as the code of conduct for public officers.

Recall that the former chief Justice Onnoghen was suspended by Buhari based on allegations of impropriety and non declaration of assets. Yet in this case, the NBG DG is still in office whilst standing trial, and has further taken undue advantage of his privileged position as the Chief Executive Officer of a public agency to allocate six prime slots of radio license to himself.

The group also alleges that Mr. Kawu is also corruptly enriching himself by selling and substituting licenses to companies and people who never applied for them.

CACOBAG also called on President Buhari to as a matter of urgency direct one of the anti-graft agencies; EFCC and ICPC to probe its allegation against NBC and its leadership.

According to the group, “President Buhari should also immediately direct either the EFCC or ICPC to launch an investigation into this embarrassing development to protect the integrity of the administration as one with zero tolerance for corruption.”