The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja rejected the appeal by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to restore its power to impose fines on broadcast media organisations.
The appellate court in its judgement delivered by Justice Inyang struck out the NBC’s appeal, describing it as fundamentally defective, legally non-existent and dead-on-arrival.
The Court’s decision marked a massive victory for Media Rights Agenda (MRA), which represented in court by Mr. P.Y. Danladi, and left standing a landmark judgment that strips the NBC of its ability to impose arbitrary fines.
While delivering the judgement, Justice Inyang held that the NBC had blundered the foundational paperwork, by failing to initiate the appeal under the exact same legal entity that it participated in the lower court trials.
The Court of Appeal particularly noted that the Notice of Appeal is the foundation or substratum of an appeal, and stressed that a competent notice is an absolute requirement before the court can even look at a case.
Justice Inyang emphasised that because the NBC messed up this vital step, the court lacked the jurisdiction to entertain the matter.
Justice Inyang held that no amount of participation, waiver, or consent by the parties could fix a foundation that was completely rotten from the start.
He further said; “The Notice of Appeal and the accompanying briefs are fundamentally defective and do not and cannot confer jurisdiction on this Court to hear and determine the appeal.
The Appeal Court therefore stroke the NBC’s appeal as a result of incompetence.
The decision of the appellate court marked a big blow on the NBC with regards to its regulatory overreach which dated back to May 10, 2023, when Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court delivered a groundbreaking judgment.
Justice Omotosho had held that fines are criminal sanctions, stressing that under the Nigerian law, only the courts of law and not government regulatory agencies, have the power to impose sanctions for criminal offences.
Not satisfied, the NBC in July 2023, filed an appeal urging the appellate court to set aside the judgment of the trial court which was dismissed in November 2023.
Again, on April 2, 2026, the Court of Appeal dismissed an earlier appeal by the NBC trying to overturn the lower court ruling.
With the Court of Appeal’s latest decision, the NBC’s legal struggle has been completely obliterated from the court’s docket as it is now a known legal authority that the NBC cannot act as an accuser, prosecutor, judge, and jury in its own case.
The Appeal Court ruling has accordingly cemented a massive shield against regulatory bullying and arbitrary financial penalties.
As the law now stands, if the NBC intends to punish a broadcast station, it has to follow laid down process to prove its case in a law court and not as a jury.
