Good Governance and Media Ownership in Nigeria: Dilemmatic Practices, Stoic Challenges

Abstract

Discourses on democracy in Africa often revolve around the relevance of Western democracy to African nations given the region's peculiar socioeconomic and cultural conditions (Ezeani, 2013). In many African countries, evidence abounds of the absence of democratic dividends, an indicator of the apparent failure of liberal democracy in the region. The media as the fourth estate of the realm is often seen, albeit idealistically, as being positioned to rise above democratic failures and, in its watchdog roles, to work towards the enthronement of good governance. Unfortunately, in Nigeria, the environment within which the media operates vis-àvis the ownership structures has continuously posed stoic challenges to its expected roles. The result is continuous dilemmatic practices, whereby the media's position as bastion of democracy is consistently negotiated. This article, with exemplars from the Nigerian media scene over the years, x-rays the stoic challenges which media ownership poses to Nigerian society as the nation works towards development through good governance. It argues that ownership patterns, pressures and politics continue to challenge the consistent and committed role of the media in deepening our march towards good democratic governance. The article, however, concludes that rather than heaping the blame on the media, one could more safely return a verdict of collective responsibility-viewing the failings of the media within the larger context of the failings of the social system in which the media are embedded. Such thinking invariably points to the fact that various stakeholders other than the media have a role to play in enthroning good governance in the Nigerian polity.

Peace journalism on a shoestring? Conflict reporting in Nigeria’s national news media

“…These findings correspond to earlier studies on conflict reporting in African news media, which relate gaps in in-depth reporting of causes and attention to different sides in the conflict, to structural weaknesses in the media field rather than to a ‘Rwandan model’ of deliberately enflaming tensions (e.g. Hackett, 2003: 61–63; Khan, 1998; Omenugha et al, 2013; Rodny-Gumede, 2015). This is important from a policy perspective as it supports the view that more (donor) investments in news media in divided contexts can enable them to play a more supportive role in peacebuilding.…”

“…In this section, we describe the quantitative research strategy. While previous analyses on divisive reporting in Nigeria have relied on qualitative approaches, focusing on language use, the identity of actors cited in reports and specific cases (Musa and Ferguson, 2013; Omenugha et al, 2013; Yusha’u, 2015), this quantitative research approach allows for higher generalizability of findings, but focuses on a more narrow topic, that is, the reporting of conflict causes.…”

“…Scholars have argued that Nigerian newspapers still show an ethno-regional bias in conflict reporting, especially along North–South and Muslim-Christian fault lines. Biases in the reporting of Northern and Southern newspapers have been found with regard to the 2002 Hausa-Yoruba clash and the Danish cartoon crisis of 2006 (Omenugha et al, 2013: 102–103), the violent Muslim-Christian riots of 2008 in Jos (Musa and Ferguson, 2013), and the 2009 Niger Delta and Boko Haram crises (Yusha’u, 2015). Media reports may not only fuel tensions in the way they report on politically sensitive issues, however.…”

The Influence of Newspaper Ownership on the Objectivity of the Coverage of Nigeria’s 2015 Presidential Election

“…Ownership describes the proprietorship rights that an individual, a group, or an institution, exercise over a media house (Omenugha et al, 2013). These rights confer on such proprietors, the power to determine editorial viewpoint and content of media organisations.…”

“…This makes media owners, and not the editors, the 'ultimate gatekeepers.' That is the reason some media owners can hire and fire reporters and editors at the slightest whim (Omenugha et al, 2013). But editors who are not comfortable working under such restraining conditions are at liberty to leave.…”