NBC Receives More Knocks Over AIT/Raypower Shutdown

More reactions have trailed the shutdown of the country’s largest private broadcasters, AIT and Ray Power FM, by the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC on Thursday.

The Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in the 2019 elections, Atiku Abubakar, condemning the shutdown said, “I am a lifelong democrat and throughout my political life, I have championed the principles of Separation of Powers. The Legislature has been challenged. The Judiciary has been tackled.

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“If, at this time, we stand by as the press loses its independence, there will be little to differentiate us from a dictatorship.”

Outgoing Kaduna Central senator, Shehu Sani, on his twitter handle said, “The suspension of @AIT Online is an utterly condemnable act. The suspension is politically motivated. It’s an act of ingratitude & treachery to strangulate the very media outlet that has played a pivotal role in the struggle for the restoration and defense of democracy.”

Also condemning the act, former Aviation Minister and a chieftain of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Fani-Kayode said, “I warned Nigerians in 2015 and I was maligned and hated for it. I warned Nigerians in 2019 and I was ignored, despised and ostracised for it. Even now Nigerians still don’t know the nature of the monster that plagues and afflicts them. The worst is yet to come.”

An aide to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri, described the closure of the stations as a sign of dictatorship.

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“The @MBuhari junta has shut down @AIT_Online. We are now officially a dictatorship. Opposition voices are stifled, and those who voted against Buhari are treated like enemies of the state and called ‘necessary evil’,” he wrote on twitter.

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