Bauchi Govt withdraws Daar Communication’s Right of Occupancy of its land; Station suspects political motive

Bauchi ‎State Government has withdrawn the Right of Occupancy of a land situated at Tirwun outskirts of Bauchi belonging to DAAR Communications, owners of African Independent Television (AIT) and Raypower.

The letter to that effect, signed by the State commissioner of Lands, Alhaji Abubakar Tatari Ali, and made available to newsmen in the state, reads: “‎Reference to our earlier grant of a Right of Occupancy No BA/RDZWR letter dated 13th January, 2015 issued to you. I am to write and inform you that the title has been withdrawn for overriding public interest as contained in Section 28 of the Land Use Act No 6 of 1978.”

In his reaction, the Acting Head of AIT/RAYPOWER Bauchi, Yakubu Bala said ‎”I don’t know why they are saying overriding public interest. We don’t know whether they are saying that the general public are not interested in AIT programmes and if it is so, how do we know that the general public don’t like AIT, RAYPOWER.”

According to him,”if you call anybody from Bauchi, he will tell you that it is the coming of AIT/RAYPOWER to Bauchi that has made the general public to know about democracy. Well, what we know is that government is government but you cannot just tell somebody move within two weeks.”

Bala added, “The law says even if it is an ordinary house you must give somebody a notice of six months and if the person does not find another place, you have to give him another six months. And if that is not done, you have to provide a place for him and you are to take responsibility, that is what the law says,” he added.

“It is likely they are doing this may be because of the programmes we are airing where opposition politicians come to say their views, we don’t know that,” he stressed, pointing out that “in our station, we are not doing anything that is against the law of journalism and more so, in our station, government programmes are almost 70 to 80 per cent while opposition and other people are 20 per cent.”

The Acting Head of AIT/RAYPOWER stated further that they will abide by the law guiding the country, if somebody is giving someone a notice he should give him six months and not two weeks.‎