A Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court, Abuja, on Thursday, restrained the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) from terminating a contract for Nigeria’s transition from analogue to digital TV broadcasting.
Justice A. A Ademu in a ruling on an ex-parte application brought against NBC by six aggrieved companies, ordered the commission and the companies to maintain status quo on the disputed contractual agreement until the determination of the case.
Justice Ademu said the NBC, having become aware of the motion on notice, should desist from taking further steps pending the final resolution of all issues raised against it by the plaintiffs.
He further referred the case file to the Chief Judge of the FCT High Court, Justice Hussein Baba Yusuf, for re-assignment to another Judge having just completed the vacation proceedings.
The aggrieved companies, in the ex-parte motion marked FCT/HC/CMR/CV/442/2024, prayed for an order of the court to restrain NBC pending the hearing of a motion on notice before the court.
The companies are Incorporated Trustees of the Association of Licensed Set Top Boxes Manufacturers of Nigeria, Gospell Digital Technology Ltd, Digitune Media Technologies, I-Box Engineering, Trefonics Electronics and Tve-RLG Limited.
In the motion argued by Dr Reuben Atabo, the claimants also applied for an order stopping NBC from advertising to bid for a licence to transit from analogue to digital torrential television.
Besides, the plaintiffs asked the court to stop the NBC from granting licences to any company or individual to manufacture set-top boxes for the switch off of analogue to digital until their case is fully disposed of.
The NBC and Inview Technologies Limited were listed as 1st and 2nd defendants in the suit.
Grounds upon which their application is predicated are that NBC initiated a policy of switch off from analogue to digital torrential television in Nigeria in 2012 and that they were granted a licence to participate in the program upon payment of N50M to the NBC.
They asserted that they were to be given two years of exclusive rights to recoup their investment from the date of switch off by NBC.
The plaintiffs said they were authorised to manufacture one million Set Top Boxes specifically designed to switch off of analogue to digital torrential television in Nigeria,
They, however, claimed that on August 22, 2024, the Director General of the NBC issued a press statement with the Executive Vice Chairman of the National Communication Commission that the federal government has approved the sum of N10bn for the take-off of switch-off from digital to analogue.
According to them, the NBC Director General announced the jettisoning of the set-top boxes they manufactured in favour of Hybrid Android DTH Set Top Boxes with data connectivity functionalities thereby terminating their subsisting contract.