Wazobia FM Loses Broadcasting License

The regulatory authority of Nigeria’s broadcasting stations, National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has suspended the broadcasting license of  Wazobia FM for repeating conspiracy theories about polio vaccines days before deadly attacks on polio clinics in the North.

Gunmen attacked two polio clinics in the northern city of Kano on February 8, killing at least 10 people, after Wazobia FM broadcast a story reviving claims that the vaccines are part of a Western plot to harm Muslims. In case you missed the story read it HERE

Two journalists who worked on the programme, as well as a radical Islamic cleric featured on the show, have been charged with incitement to violence and other offences in connection with the shootings.

“Following due consideration of the seriousness of the breaches contained in the programme, which was inciting, the commission has formed the opinion that the station has been used in a manner detrimental to national interest,” said the statement from the National Broadcasting Commission.

Presenter Yakubu Musa Fagge said in the Hausa language broadcast on Wazobia FM:

Local officials in Kano “have signed contract with the white men from the West, going door-to-door forcing on children (the) polio vaccine that has no basis.”

“Go and tell the World Health Organisation that I know what is in (the) polio vaccine. I only keep quiet because it is not good to stir confusion,”