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Following a weekend raid on the premises of three cable TV operators in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Association of Cable Operators of Nigeria (ACON) has called on the anti-graft agency to release nine of their employees arrested during the raid.
National chairman of the association, Sir Kunle Osisanya Afolabi, at a press briefing in Port Harcourt Tuesday, said EFCC personnel raided the offices of CANTV, CTL, MetroTV in the city, destroyed their equipment and arrested nine employees.
Afolabi who said the arrest was based on the complaint that cable operators were running satellite television illegally, insisted that they were only operating cable TV.
“EFCC did a release, and they claim they have arrested illegal satellite operators. But the people they have arrested are not satellite operators.
“Satellites are those things you throw in the air that covers a very area, such as continents and what have you. Operators in Port Harcourt are not satellite operators, they are cable operators.
“Cable operation is regulated by National Broadcasting Commission and National Copyright Commission.
“CTL, Multimesh, all these people that were arrested, their signals do not exceed Port Harcourt and its environs. Those are what we mean by cable operators. They are different from satellite operators,” he said.
Afolabli also alleged that the raid by the EFCC was prompted by a South African subscription collecting firm, adding that the action of the agency must have been carried out in error, while expressing worry that the EFCC could raid cable operators’ office when a matter between cable operators and Multichoice/DSTV was still in court.
Afolabi said: “By the prompting of Multichoice/DSTV Nigeria, a subscription collecting firm of South Africa’s DSTV, the EFCC raided three operators of the Multipoint Microwave Distribution Systems operators in Port-Harcourt last Saturday.
“In a commando-style, they simultaneously attacked the headends of our members: CANTV, MetroTv and CTL ordering the staff on duty to lie down, seized their phones, forcibly dismantled transmission equipment and carted them away along with the staff of the three stations”.
He said DSTV, a digital satellite television outfit, allegedly plotted the raid so they could have monopoly over transmission of live English Premier League matches which he said “has been Multichoice/DSTV’s business model and strategy”.
Afolabi alleged that Multichoice/DSTV Nigeria has chased away some cable operators from the market and has destroyed Nigeria’s culture through importation of foreign products adding that Multichoice/DSTV charges Nigerians more exorbitantly than their South African compatriots.
“Nigerians pay higher than what is paid in South Africa for DSTV, the bulk of DSTV/Multichoice money in this whole world is coming from Nigeria,” he said.
Afolabi said by the raid and damage done to equipment of the cable operators, their provision of service to low and middle-class income earners has been denied them saying that the disruption has cost the three operators loss of money in millions of naira.
He said the EFCC should not have acted on the petition by Multichoice/DSTV Nigeria since there was a matter in court over transmission of live English Premier League matches.
The ACON chief said: “Nigerian broadcast code requires that one company cannot control major sports content across all the TV platforms. The Nigeria law also allows any party interested to show live contents in a delayed mode. Where the parties cannot agree on the price, the court will determine the price to be paid. We have made this request to Multichoice and as usual they refused. We went to court as required by law to determine the price to pay to them.
“While the court is deliberating on the issues, they went ahead and vandalized all the local cable companies in Port-Harcourt with the sole purpose of making sure no Nigerian company survives in this industry. They damaged and carted away FM radio and TV transmitters, FM radio transmitters that have nothing to do with Multichoice/DSTV’s petition,” he said.