The Appeal Court in Port Harcourt, Rivers state, Wednesday, ordered MultiChoice — operators of DStv and Gotv in Nigeria, to sub-license some of its television channels to Metro Digital, in line with the code of the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC).
The appellant, Metro Digital, a local pay television, had sued MultiChoice at Federal High Court in Port Harcourt, after the South African entertainment company rejected a request from the former to sublicense channels and programmes to Metro Digital.
The Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC) and the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture were sued as co-defendants.
MultiChoice had contended that, not being the owners of the programmes, it could not share the licences to them as requested by Metro Digital.
The South African cable television company’s refusal to share its programmes licences, triggered the lawsuit filed by Metro Digital in 2021.
The Metro Digital lost the suit at the High Court and subsequently filed an appeal against it.
But delivering judgement in the appeal challenging the lower court’s decision, on Wednesday, the judge, Olabode Adegbehingbe, ordered MultiChoice to sublicense the channels within 21 days, under the supervision of the NBC.
Adegbehingbe said the NBC violated its statutory duties for refusing to issue directives to the complaints by Metro Digital.
The judge noted that the non-intervention of NBC impacted negatively on the appellant’s business.
“It is my conclusion that the lower court erred when it struck out the name of the third respondent on the suit,” the judge said.
