Comfort Isaac
Media Rights Agenda (MRA) has tackled the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, over its recent ban on Eedris Abdulkareem’s song tagged, “Tell Your Papa.”
The NBC had on April 9,2025 through its Coordinating Director of Broadcast Monitoring, Susan Obi, issued a directive to all the radio and television stations across the country not to air the song by the Nigerian rapper with claims that the content is inappropriate for broadcast due to its alleged objectionable nature.
However, MRA, in a statement on Friday by its Programme Officer, Ayomide Eweje, described NBC’s directive as not only a blatant abuse of regulatory power, but a violation of constitutional rights as provided in Section 39 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended)
She wondered if NBC has forgotten its status as a supposedly independent media regulatory body to act as propaganda agency that protects the government from criticism or embarrassment.
Eweje insisted that NBC’s ban on a song that reawakens social and political consciousness without a clear legal basis or due process amounts to censorship.
She argued that artists have the right and freedom to use their platforms to raise awareness, reflect public sentiment even critique or criticize government where neccesary saying that the NBC, as a regulatory body, must act within the bounds of the law and not to be used as a tool to suppress “uncomfortable truths against government.”
She, therefore called on NBC to immediately rescind the ban on “Tell Your Papa” and refrain from arbitrary actions that erode public trust in it and all stakeholders in the media and creative sectors, as well as civil society, to resist any attempt to “muzzle freedom of expression under the guise of regulation.”