Niger State Governor Muhammed Bago ordered the closure of 10-year-old Badeggi Radio Station operating in Minna, the state capital, on Saturday.
Speaking at an All Progressives Congress (APC) Caucus meeting held at the Government House, Bago publicly accused the station of “anti-peace and treasonable incitement” of the public against his government.
“He is promoting insecurity in Niger State,” Bago told an audience which included Information Minister Muhammed Idris.
“Its utterances are treasonable. Therefore, we have sealed that station with immediate effect.”
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He told the minister, whose ministry surpervises regulator National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), “We are writing you formally with a complaint of his anti-peace and treasonable incitement of the public against the government. Therefore, his licence, if he has a licence at all, must be revoked.”
Bago was referring to Alhaji Muhammed Shuaibu, the founder of Badeggi Radio Broadcasting Services Ltd.
Bago also stated, in an official release (archived here) by Bologi Ibrahim, his spokesperson, that he took the decision because the station’s activities had been “unethical” and that the police, aside from shutting it down, must profile the founder.
FIJ reviewed some of the station’s reports on Facebook. Some programmes were critical of Bago’s administration, but none encouraged the public to challenge the state with violence.
HOW CAN BAGO NOT BE AWARE OF AKUM’S PROBLEMS?
On Tuesday, the station’s ‘Global Review – Issues in the News‘ programme dissected the infrastructural and manpower problem at the Abdulkadir Kure University Minna (AKUM).
Usman Apaya, one of the anchors, read out an article alleging that the institution lacked the personnel strength to cater to the learning needs of its students.
“Abdulkadir Kure University, Minna, started with the Faculty of Education. It has four departments which include Education, Vocational and Technical Education, Science Education, and Arts and Social Sciences Education. All these departments have only 13 lecturers with over 15 degree programmes,” the anchor read.
“As at today, it has additional faculties such as Environmental Science, Management Sciences, Natural and Allied Health Sciences. All these faculties have admitted students into their programmes and paid school fees but with no single lecturer on ground to teach the students. The university has no manpower for all these programmes and lectures are to commence on July 28, 2025, with no single lecturers for these new programmes.
“Faculties have no deans, no HODs [Heads of Departments] and no lecturers. 50 students were admitted to study nursing sciences but there is no single lecturer to teach them. They paid schools fees up to N500,000 per session with nothing to show [for it]. The university is a total scam. Even the existing Faculty of Education that has 13 lecturers has gone around to Lapai College of Education Minna, Federal University of Technology Minna and Federal Polytechnic Bida to get lecturers on part-time. This is a pathetic situation, which even the farmer governor is not aware of.”
In response, the founder asked rhetorically, “Yahaya Kuta, how market?” Kuta is the university’s pro-chancellor.
Commenting on the statement in the article that the governor might not be aware of the situation at AKUM, Badeggi asked, “How can he not be aware? Is he not the Visitor to the university? Is he not the one running around to make the university work? Taliba should come as a visiting lecturer. He is a PhD holder. Yahaya Kuta, too, should be lecturing. When you plant something and you don’t look after it, you will get zero. That’s what it means.”
LAWSUIT AGAINST LG ELECTION
On Monday, the radio station reported and analysed a lawsuit filed by Chanchaga Local Government Chairman Aminu Ladan against the Niger State government over the trimming of LGA chairmen’s tenure from four to three years.
The LG chair filed the suit before the Federal High Court in Abuja to restrain the Niger Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Niger House of Assembly, Niger State Independent Electoral Commission, Independent National Electoral Commission, Inspector General of Police and three other defendants until their recognised four-year tenure ends.
Ladan, a member of the same political party as the governor, is challenging the constitutionality of the Niger State Local Government Law 2001 that reduces the tenure of LGA chairmen and councillors to a single term of three years contrary to the four-year term prescribed by the 1999 Constitution.
By that lawsuit, Ladan is attempting to force the state electoral commission to put its planned November 1 LG election in the state on hold.
POOR PENSION PAYMENT, CALL FOR NAMI TO CHALLENGE BAGO IN THE 2027 ELECTION
Just two days before Bago’s order, the radio station broadcast a programme on the pedigree of Muhammad Nami, the Niger-born immediate past chair of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), implying that he could help the state expand its revenue capacity if given a chance.
Danladi Umar Abdulhameed, a Niger-born member of Rabiu Kwankwaso’s Kwankwasiyya Movement in Kano State, lamented the government’s poor handling of pension payments and suggested that Nami could be governor of the state if he decided to contest.
“Just yesterday, Alhaji Babawo Chukwu Yahaya, a former permanent secretary, collapsed and died. Why I am so bothered about his own case is that he was a permanent secretary like myself. Just yesterday in the morning, he was contacting some of our colleagues that he has not collected his own pension for this month. I have not collected mine either. Many people have not collected theirs,” Abdulhameed told the radio station on Thursday.
“So, believe me, there are responsibilities around you and the only thing you are relying on is this pension; it is not coming as and when due. It is really not good. I am appealing, I am calling for the attention of our farmer governor Bago that the rights of pensioners are given to them as and when due because this young man who died, I knew he had some financial problems. I knew he had a family to fend for. I knew he lacked some money. So the pension never came and he was busy asking. Unfortunately, last night he slumped and died.”
On Nami’s political chances, Abdulhameed said he believed that Nami’s antecedent helming the nation’s revenue agency had primed him for greater political offices, including the office of the Niger State governor.
“He [Nami] was well brought up by his parents. They gave him the education required from a village called Nami. Six months after he was appointed, he pumped in resources to build his community. So, such a person, when he has the opportunity, he would do better than that.
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“If he had not left that office, we would not have been talking about him today. So he has left but in Niger State, we need him. Nami is our own. Nami can occupy the highest political position you [can think of] in Niger State. He can become a president. Nami can become a governor. Nami may become a senator. Nami can decide to become a councillor of his ward. It all depends on what he chooses to be.
“The highest elective position in the state is governorship. He is well fitted for that position if he so decides. If he doesn’t want to do it, he can become a senator.”
When he chimed in, the owner of the station described democracy as “competitive” and, given Nami’s experience helping the Buhari administration to generate fortunes in revenues, “there is no harm asking Nami to contest on any political platform of his choice in 2027 so that we can give Niger a choice”.
“Nami never begged to be anything,” he continued.
“Did Nami beg Buhari to give him a job? But they saw him and they gave him a job. That is why we are now calling Nami to come and become governor of Niger State in 2027. Bago is two years into his first four-year term and would likely re-bid for the same office in 2027.”
Not long after this programme was aired, Bago decided to seal Badeggi FM.
Abubakar Shuaib, the radio station’s Director of Operations told Daily Nigerian that the programme “triggered the outburst from the governor”.
The governor’s order is the latest instance of an official attack on press freedom in Nigeria.
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