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From their lofty perches, Nigerian journalists like
to think that the degeneracy which has degraded virtually all our institutions
has somehow missed the fourth estate. This is, of course, a delusion. One of
the big problems with democracy is how issues which affect the society are
framed by the press and perceived in the public domain. Because democracies and
open societies are nourished by a free press and by freedom of information, the
fourth estate of the realm is a deservedly strategic sector. The Nigerian press
is often described as vibrant but that all depends on what this vibrancy
connotes.
The press endured considerable
persecution during the years of military rule. The Buhari and Babangida regimes
utilized draconian legal instruments such as Decree 2 and Decree 4 to shackle
the media. The notable collisions of press freedom and military dictatorship
resulted in the incarcerations of two reporters, Nduka Irabor and Tunde
Thompson by the Buhari regime. During the Babangida era, the suppression of the
press was dialled up with the parcel-bomb assassination of Dele Giwa and the
proscription of Newswatch magazine. But
all this paled in comparison to the Abacha junta’s declared war against the
press in the nineties. Reporters were tried as conspirators in fictitious
coup-plots and jailed. Some like Bagauda Kaltho were murdered by the regime’s
death squads. Even newsvendors were harassed by security operatives while media
houses like The Guardian were shut down.
Its publisher, Alex Ibru, narrowly missed assassination by the junta’s agents.
Unsurprisingly, journalists (along with much of the
Nigerian intelligentsia) fled into exile but many also went underground. Thus
was born the era of guerrilla journalism. Nigerian journalists courageously
continued to ply their craft often at the risk of their lives and that of their
families. This corps of intrepid pressmen released a volley of magazines week
after week, disclosing the inner workings of a secretive dictatorship and
providing a platform for opposition views. TELL and TEMPO magazines were the
undisputed leaders of this brand of journalistic resistance. Many Nigerians bought these magazines to keep
informed about the intrigues of a detached junta as well as a subtle act of
civil resistance. It was the era of information warfare with government
propagandists armed with all the might of the state ranged against guerrilla
journalists armed only with their pens and their wits. Abacha’s demise in 1998
and the return to civil rule in 1999 were chalked down as a much deserved
victory for the Nigerian press.
As Nigerian journalists came in from the cold and
out of their closets, they found a country that had changed. Abacha’s
devastation of the economy had wiped out the middle class. People could no
longer afford the rising costs of newspapers or magazines. The second change
was that the nascent post-military era called for new rules of engagement
between the press and the government. Even the State Security Service was
undergoing a media-friendly makeover. The Nigerian press jaded and traumatized
by their brutalization during the military era couldn’t adapt. Under the
prevailing economic circumstances, some publications died out and some media
houses closed down. It was at this point that Nigerian journalism took a turn
for the worse.
The media practitioner must submit himself to two
imperatives – truth and profit. Truth is the purest form of information. The
zenith of the journalistic art is to distil facts into truth and present that
high-grade information to the public. But a newspaper or a newsmagazine is also
a business and requires profit to validate its existence. Ideally, a
publication devoted to truth should yield profit. However, the ideal situation
is also the rarest. Media practitioners all over the world find it necessary to
balance the two imperatives and it can be a delicate juggling act. In the worst
case scenario, the imperative of truth is subordinated to the bottom line. And
it is in this tragic limbo that the Nigerian press now finds itself.
As soon as the post-military environment became
clear to media practitioners, they adjusted their priorities somewhat. One
trend was the growing popularity of the tabloid format. Newsmagazines
transmuted almost overnight into tabloids and gossip journals. This was well
before the advent of The Sun. To be sure, the degeneration of the Nigerian
press reflects the intellectual bankruptcy of the society at large and also
feeds it. The lack of a reading culture in the Nigerian society is a problem.
Nigerians basically do not read and when they do read, the material is shallow,
pedestrian and banal. The fact that pornographic magazines litter the streets
is instructive. The Nigerian pressman also faces the challenge of what the
Nigerian public wants to read about. By and large, scandal sheets have thrived
because most readers are interested in the sex lives of Nigerian socialites;
they want to know the salacious details of upper class misdemeanours. Consequently,
journalists now regurgitate beer parlour gossip seasoned with conjecture as
serious reportage, while the news pages themselves are riddled with school-boy
grammatical errors.
A journalist committed to truth in an
anti-intellectual society such as ours is engaging in a profoundly
revolutionary activity. Nigerians are not given to contemplation, introspection
or inquiry. We prefer to see pictures of celebrity weddings and snippets of the
romantic indiscretions of the rich and famous. Even when politics or the
economy is the subject, its treatment is superficial and dull as though
designed not to provoke a serious mental consideration of the subject.
Superficiality and sensationalism are the two guiding principles of Nigerian
journalism as we now know it. I find it remarkable that a 1985 edition of Newswatch evinces more substance, more
style and more craft than the present day version. The 1986 editions of Thisweek magazine that I have in my
archives compare favourably with any international journal of that period. Something
ghastly has happened to the Nigerian press.
The subordination of truth to profits has led to
even more dangerous perfidies. The typical Nigerian newspaper is filled with
all kinds of paid adverts and congratulatory messages to government officials by
the court-jesters and praise singers of Nigerian politics. News publications
may editorialize against the sycophancy of those who sponsor such
congratulatory messages but have no problem running those same messages for the
sycophants who can pay for them. There is nothing wrong with bathing soap or
breakfast cereal commercials on the pages of newspapers. But when banks take
the front and back pages of a newspaper to advertise their shares, surely
questions need to be asked. When high-powered corporations can take the first
four pages of a newspaper any day to advertise whatever they want, there is a
problem. In an age of increasing corporate power in Nigeria, how committed can our
journalists be to uncovering corporate malfeasances perpetrated in the banking
sector, for example, if the offending banks sustain the press through adverts?
The conflict of interest is enough to call the newspaper’s credibility into
question.
One of the hot button issues of 2006 was the
so-called Third term agenda. The Nigerian press was vociferous in its
condemnation of the idea. I thought the issues were framed at times
inaccurately or at worst fraudulently by the press so that the debate itself
was severely devalued. The press, eager to be seen as activist lost itself in a
maelstrom of mass hysteria and failed woefully to illuminate the conversation.
Amazingly, some newspapers that were strident in their opposition of the third
term agenda ran third term campaign adverts on their first four pages. The
inconsistency was befuddling. Some editors justified running the ads on the
basis of high-minded ideals like freedom of opinion and freedom of expression.
The more obvious reason for the editorial contortion lay in the realm of
Mammon. A multi-million naira ad campaign wasn’t going to be turned down for
the sake of maintaining editorial or moral consistency. And so ironically, news
publications dripping with vitriol (and at times just sheer falsehood) about
the third term agenda had no problem running ads in support of the campaign.
The third term agenda was only part of a number of proposed constitutional
amendments which included, and crucially so, the removal of the provision which
grants immunity to elected officials in criminal matters. Even with the
opposition to a proposed presidential third term, other amendments could have
been passed. But the fundamentally flawed depiction of the whole third term
thing killed an opportunity for a badly needed constitutional change.
From guerrilla journalism in the nineties, the
Nigerian press has adopted mercenary journalism. What was once known as the
brown envelope syndrome has progressed to become editorializing for the highest
bidder. We live in times of rogue politicians with deep pockets. Some state
governors targeted by the government for prosecution for corruption own
newspapers. Truth is almost the last item on any journalist’s agenda. When a
newsmagazine carries a headline like “El-Rufai’s Stolen Billions” I expect
evidence and rigorous investigative reporting, not creative writing and beer
parlour gossip from “unnamed” or “anonymous” sources. Unfortunately,
investigative reporting is a lost art in Nigerian journalism. It is a lot
easier for smear campaigns to be bought and paid for using journalistic
channels. And there are too many character assassins masquerading as
journalists for the credibility of the profession. Corruption is the abuse of
power. If the pen is mightier than the sword, then it suggests that the power
of the pen is formidable and therefore susceptible to corruption like any other
form of power. Consequently, in the words of one ancient prophet, “Justice is
turned back, truth is fallen in the streets and equity cannot enter.”
The shallowness, superficiality and sensationalism
of the Nigerian press are a problem for democracy. If the press cannot provoke
new dimensions of public thought through its analysis or reportage, if it
cannot provoke a civic awakening or increased civic participation through its
work, then it is useless. Truth is the raison d’etre of journalism. Six months
after Obasanjo’s exit from power, Nigerian news headlines suggest insistently
that the ex-president is some kind of arch-villain still orchestrating chaos
behind the curtains. The use of sensational headlines vilifying and demonizing
the former president is an old parlour trick for raising profits by desperate
pressmen. Periodically, the Nigerian press takes the pulse of the society and
harnesses its neurosis for commercial gain. About a decade ago, the former Head
of State, Babangida was being similarly vilified and demonized as the “evil
genius.” Nigerians have the habit of ascribing all their troubles to one man in
order to evade any form of collective responsibility. Babangida was cast as the
arch-villain then because of his sleight of hand, his cunning, the mystery
surrounding his exit from power and his persona. His regime had subverted
democracy and somehow paved the way for Abacha. With Abacha’s demise, the
public were inclined to blame Babangida for Abacha’s sins. They hated the retired
general from Minna as much as they were bizarrely fascinated by him. And
Nigerian newsmen saw an opportunity to exploit the commercially viable
Babangida brand to a hilt for profit. A similar thing is happening with
Obasanjo today as newsmagazines shamelessly peddle his name and exploit the
public’s paranoia for profit.
The survival of democracies and open societies
depends heavily on a vibrant media. A fourth estate captivated by the idea of
truth can sharpen the civic consciousness and increase public activism. Such a
press could even provoke a renewal of our deeply dysfunctional political
process. This requires a quantum leap in terms of philosophy and practice for
the corps of the Nigerian press. Journalism with a hidden agenda will not solve
the afflictions of the republic, neither will mercenary reporting. We need a
revival of investigative reporting and more intelligent analysis. In a
brain-dead society that has refused to think, we need more journalists working
to stir the Nigerian psyche. There are, of course, those who will say that
Nigerian journalism being a reflection of Nigerian society cannot be motivated
by anything other than pecuniary gain. They will argue that the costs of being
motivated by truth alone may be too high in an environment like ours. They have
a point. Godwin Agbroko, an editor with Thisday
was murdered by unknown assailants in December 2006. His murder remains
unsolved. But this is hardly surprising; as a rule, murders aren’t solved in Nigeria. The Nigerian State, being less than
democratic, has still to learn how to accommodate the press.
However, one might argue that journalism is a
calling to speak truth to power. It is in this sense that the pen is mightier
than the sword, for where the sword wielded by a despotic state manifests
terror, the pen of the journalist manifests truth. Dictatorships thrive by
unfurling the veil of secrecy over the state and placing information that
ordinarily should be in the public domain in the realm of forbidden knowledge.
Dictators in Nigeria, even those in civilian garments, would like to keep
details of how much they earn officially, how much Local governments receive
from the federation account, and how they spend public funds hidden from the
public scrutiny. Hopefully, the Freedom of Information Bill should help cure
political office-holders of their obsessive secrecy. And let there be no
mistake, a very real threat exists; one in which civilian dictators and
corporate oligarchs will create a feudal confederacy aimed at monopolizing
political and economic power. The Nigerian press can be accused of complicity
in some of the bleakest moments of our history. The so-called Lagos-Ibadan
press, in particular, The Concord and
The Tribune helped to bring down
Shagari’s second republic government. Both newspapers were owned by Chief
Moshood Abiola and Chief Obafemi Awolowo respectively. Both men were
politicians disgruntled with regime of the day. This just goes to show that
historically the Nigerian press can scarcely be said to be apolitical. Given
the quality of leadership today, such dalliances with the political class will
have even more dangerous consequences.
Nigerians who want more have long since tuned off
from the preternaturally bland state-owned media. It is a truism that you are
more likely to get accurate information from private stations like AIT and
Channels, and from foreign stations like the BBC, VOA and CNN than from the
state-owned NTA or Radio Nigeria. But the new frontier
for information-hungry Nigerians is the internet. As wiring costs fall
dramatically, the internet will become a feature of many Nigerian households.
Already web-surfing by phone is offered by Nigerian phone networks. There are
forums online where Nigerians can enjoy good investigative reporting. There are
several sites set up for public discourse where Nigerians can debate the fine
points of the republic. This is a generational shift embracing Nigerians at
home and in the Diaspora in a virtual communion of informed connectivity. More
and more people will turn away from the cerebrally arid offerings on the
newsstands and turn to the net for succour. As this minority grows, some
publications driven by the quest for truth will survive and even prosper. These
virtually informed networks hold the seeds of Nigeria’s democratization.
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Posted by Robot| 10.02.2008 13:19