March 25, 2022

The media in Africa has come a long way. From 1859 when the first newspaper was published in South Africa to the advent of the electronic broadcasting to the digital era, the media has fought for survival. Survival from the vicissitudes and vagaries of governments emanating from socio-political, economic, cultural and ideological beliefs, which impacted on the practitioners over the years. The media has also outlived administrations and regimes which tried to use the instruments of the state to frustrate, intimidate, harass and jail practitioners.

They include the colonialists of the 19th century, leadership of states in post-colonial Africa after the attainment of Independence, the military dictatorships of the 1990s; the apartheid regime in South Africa and the emerging hybrid democracies of the 21st century.

The African media has survived the authoritarian era when colonial masters dictated what was published and would not hesitate to silence or jail dissents amidst the struggle for independence. From Sub-saharan Africa to East Africa and South Africa, the media suffered similar fate. Initially, the media was solely government-owned before the nationalists established those they used in the independence struggle and after independence, there were others who redefined their roles to support the newly independent states. Now the digital media is the in thing with technology disrupting the traditional ways news was hitherto served by the media. Now more than ever, the instrument of mass media albeit the ubiquitous digital is in the hands of every African citizen who can afford internet-enabled mobile phone. Such a person, now known as citizen journalist, can cover and report events and broadcast same through video or audio or text.

In Nigeria, some of the early nationalists including Herbert Macaulay, Nnamdi Azikiwe Obafemi Awolowo, who owned the media found themselves hounded by the colonial masters and in some instances, they were jailed. But they defied the colonialists by wearing their jailing as a badge of honour, which strengthened them for the struggle and even attracted followers to them.  Azikiwe owned the West African Pilot while Obafemi Awolowo established the Tribune, which is the oldest surviving newspaper in the country. Those days, flowery languages were used to describe the nationalists in the media.

However, the attainment of independence in the 1960s by most African countries including Nigeria saw the media scale down on activism and worked to carve out a role to help nurture the government of most independent states.  Hence, the call for development journalism, conceived in the 1960s at the Press Foundation of Asia, where Filipino journalists Alan Chalkey and Jaun Mercado expressed concern that news organisations were inadequately covering socio-economic development instead they were reporting government press releases and quotes and giving little attention to detailed analysis, interpretation, or evaluation of development projects, policies or problems. David Edeani, a mass communication scholar, defined development journalism as “the kind of journalism that pays sustained attention to the coverage of ideas, policies, programmes, activities and events dealing with the improvement of the life of people.”

Nonetheless, the media in Africa is still grappling with this role amidst sustained efforts by military dictatorships that seized power in most African countries shortly after independence with some of them enacting regulations to muzzle the media.  One of such infamous legislations on the continent is the Decree 4 of 1984 with which two journalists with the Guardian Newspaper – Nduka Irabor and Tunde Thompson – were jailed in 1984. The journalists who were jailed for publishing “false statements likely to bring the government or officials into ridicule or disrepute” according to New York Times, were later released after 11 months in jail in March 1985. They were sentenced for publishing three articles on the reorganization of Nigeria’s diplomatic service which was regarded as a politically sensitive issue in which they attributed their information directly to specific sources rather than using vague but safer information.

In South Africa and other African countries, the independent media suffered similar fate. There were instances of some journalists who disappeared without a trace, some were killed and jailed. Recently, Augias Ray Malonga, acting director of the privately owned newspaper Sel-Piment, was arrested at his home in Brazzaville, Congo, and tried for defamation. Also, the Committee for Protection of Journalists called on Cameroonian authorities to drop the prosecution of Malcom Bernabé Paho and decriminalize journalism in the country. On February 22, the national gendarmerie arrested Paho, director of the newspaper Midi Libre Hebdo; opened a criminal defamation case against him; and detained him for two days in the capital Yaoundé, following a complaint filed by Boba Denis, a pastor who heads the Africa Life World Mission church, an international religious organization.

Vic Alhadeff, who was chief sub-editor of The Cape Times, Cape Town’s daily newspaper, during the apartheid era, told a captivating story of the fate of the media in that regime. According to him, Cape Times was a staunchly anti-apartheid newspaper, and the government had enacted a draconian system of laws to govern and restrict what media could say. The effect was that anti-apartheid activists such as Mandela were not ‘merely’ imprisoned, they were also banned, as was the African National Congress.

“Under the law, Alhadeff, said “it was illegal to quote a banned person or organisation. This meant if there was to be an anti-apartheid rally in the city – and we reported it – it could be construed as promoting the aims of a banned organisation. As chief sub-editor, I had to navigate this minefield. In addition, most English-language newspapers were anti-apartheid and had a resident police spy on staff roll (one of our senior journalists); on a number of occasions I would receive a call from the Magistrate’s Office after the newspaper had gone to print at midnight, putting an injunction on a story. We would have to call back the trucks and dump the 100,000 copies of the newspaper and reprint.

“The challenge was to inform readers as to what was happening and to speak out against apartheid – without breaking the law. South Africa had its own Watergate equivalent. The apartheid government understood that English speakers generally were anti-apartheid, so it siphoned 64 million rands from the Defence budget and set up the Information Department. The aim was to purchase media outlets overseas which would be pro-apartheid, and it set up an English-language newspaper in South Africa, to be pro-apartheid. It was called The Citizen – and I was offered a job as deputy editor at double my salary, plus an Audi. (I declined the offer, for the record). Two journalists uncovered the scandal, and brought down the Prime Minister.”

It is pertinent to state that through all the harrowing experiences, the media and the practitioners in the continent have remained resilient. The resilience paid off in 1991 when African journalists drafted the Windhoek Declaration calling for press freedom. The document regarded as pivotal in the development of the mass media in Africa was later endorsed by the United Nations’ cultural organization, UNESCO, as many countries dispensed with military dictatorship and one-party system in favour of liberal politics.

Consequently, most African governments enshrined the obligations of the press and its freedom in their constitution. For instance, Section 39 of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution as amended states: “Every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference.

Also, Subsection 2 states that “Without prejudice to the generality of Subsection (1) of this section, every person shall be entitled to own, establish and operate any medium for the dissemination of information, ideas and opinion.” In addition, Section 22 of the same Constitution, says: “the Press, radio, television and other agencies of the mass media shall at all times be free to uphold the fundamental objectives contained in this Chapter and uphold the responsibility and accountability of the government of the people.”

Despite these provisions Nigerian governments have over the years infringed on press freedom and media rights. However, with the advent of digital technology, especially in the last decade, it has been observed that the legacy of military rule – authoritarianism – still persists in Nigeria, including in media control. The government in Nigeria has not fully matured into a true democracy with respect for freedom of speech and expression. In all this, some journalists in the digital space are on the receiving end.

For instance, some of the digital journalists who have survived the strong arm tactics of the state include Agba Jalingo, an online journalist, who was charged with treason in Cross River State, South-South Nigeria, for criticizing State governor Ben Ayade. There was the case of Jonathan Ugbal and Jeremiah Archibong, News Editor and Managing Editor, respectively for the CrossRiverWatch, an online newspaper owned by Jalingo. The pair was charged with “unlawful assembly” for covering a protest and prosecuted by the police. Ugbal and Archibong were arrested by the police in Calabar on August 5, 2019, alongside Nicholas Kalu, the Calabar Correspondent of The Nation newspaper, while covering the #RevolutionNow protest called by Nigerian activist Omoyele Sowore.

The resilience of the journalists was captured by Ugbal on his Facebook page on August 26, a few hours before his trial began. “As I go to court today, I leave you with the words of Julius Malema: ‘They can lock me up, I don’t care. I will go there and come back. You cannot silence political debate through scare tactics…To those whose goal is to bury us, take note, we are fertile seeds – you want to throw me in the air? I fly like a bird: you want to drown me? I am a fish. You want to lock me up? I am a key. Want to burn me? Oh, you forgot I am the flame! You sue me? The courtroom is not firing squad! Don’t bother with scare tactics, fear has and will never be a part of my DNA.”

Before and after independence the media was restricted by the government policies and lack of sufficient technology for frequent and bulk production. However, in countries such as South Africa, the publication of newspapers came as a relief to many who could now access government information and services. The government used newspapers for most of its advertisement announcements reaching a larger audience. The critics of the government and colonies also used newspapers to air their grievances and opinion.

Agreeing, Bolaji Okusaga in his article on “The Nigeria media: Evolution, trends and projections for 2018” noted that not even the invention of the radio and television could force a rethink of an age-old business model that served centuries of newshounds and news consumers – until the arrival of the digital age on the heels of the invention of the internet.

Okusaga said that with the advent of the digital age, the word ‘media’ suddenly acquired a different meaning – confusing the media professional and opening the eye of the news consumer, as digital technologies suddenly transformed the way information and news content are distributed and consumed around the world.

He observed that “today, the digital landscape has reinvented how news-consumers access news, share news and push news among communities. The digital landscape has also changed the way agenda is set and opinions are shaped. This dynamic landscape has occasioned massive shifts in the way news consumers see the world and the role of the media in it.”

However, the virtual pluralism of the media has brought its own challenges – fake news and publication of outright falsehood by amateur reporters known as citizen journalists. This has led to states enacting more laws to check abuse of the online space and to muzzle digital rights. In Nigeria, there has been the enactment of Cybercrime Act of 2015.

Whatever the future portends for the media in Africa, the hope is that they should continue to fight to ensure that the state will not eclipse its freedom even though that means suffering some inconvenience from the hands of the state from time to time.