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Partisan journalism is the reason corruption continues to thrive in Nigeria and a section of the media relapses into silence. It’s the reason elections are rigged and the riggers and their agents suffer no rebuke because those who should rebuke them are of the same ethnic stock with the polls grifters.
Each time I read the autobiography of Chief Obafemi Awolowo aptly captioned, Awo: The Autobiography of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, I get away with the impression that journalism in contemporary Nigeria has lost its bite. I shudder at the fading glory of independent media, even as I wonder at the feisty lustre that hallmarked pre-Independence journalism.
Awo’s book takes you through a journey covering swathes in the labyrinthine mangrove of free press that defined the works of the great Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, who all by himself, according to Awolowo, brought a fresh vista to fill a vacuum of jejune and dour journalism that pervaded the mainstream media at that time, circa, Lagos, 1937, when Azikiwe returned to Nigeria to establish the West African Pilot, a paper Awo described as ‘fire-eating and aggressive nationalistic paper of the highest order.’
In his book, Pa Awo gushed at the fresh perspective that Azikiwe’s Pilot brought to lighten the darkling shadows cast on the nation by the Nigerian Daily Times of that era under the editorship of Chief A. A Titcombe. Awo’s verdict: Daily Times was too pro-establishment and too timid and could not appeal to a younger, intellectually-inclined and pseudo-Victorian generation of Nigerians whose appetite was to some extent satiated by the Nigerian Daily Telegraph then edited by Ernest Ikoli and the Lagos Daily News. Both papers came close to luxuriating the literary souls of Nigerians at that time but only just that. Zik’s Pilot offered same, if not better, intellectually rich menu, but it had a topping that made it the newspaper of first choice for younger Nigerians. The Pilot was better produced and it became an instant symbol of excellent journalism, both in content and form. Journalists in the employ of The Pilot were also better paid and they ‘assumed a new status in society,’ in the words of sage Awo.
Here’s the thing: Journalism of that era was not to please the establishment or to massage the puffy ego of the colonial masters. Zik spearheaded a fresh brand of robust journalism that appealed to the people and scrutinised the leadership elite, challenging them to account to the public and rousing the populace to their responsibility of speaking out and speaking up. Journalism of that era was vibrant, non-partisan. The journalists were united in their duties of advocacy, agenda-setting, unvarnished scrutiny of public actors, upholding the banner of truth and giving voice to the voiceless. They rebuked authorities, upbraided errant bourgeoisie and were unsparing in their deprecation of misgoverning overlords steeped in primitive and divisive excesses. Despite being poorly paid and meagerly rewarded, the journalists of yesteryears were still able to wear their garment of integrity. They were simply fearless and didn’t think much about themselves as they did others. It was their collective resolve irrespective of medium that corralled into a momentous movement that birthed a pan-Nigeria, pan-Africa consciousness.
Now, let’s flip the page. Where is journalism today? Where is the fervid fibre that shaped anti-colonial journalism; the no-holds-barred inquisitorial probing that humbled power mandarins, questioned the wealth of plutocrats and brought overbearing potentates to their knees? Even all through the military era of post-Independence Nigeria, journalism still found its voice. Unafraid of the jackboot. Unfazed by the fury of gun-toting goons. Unbowed by the acrid hollers of the uniformed mob. No garrison could gag the journalists of the military era. No morsel of dainties could muzzle their voices. They lived journalism. It was their oxygen, their life. And they lived it with enviable honour.
Not so these days. These times are different. Curiously, under democracy when journalism ought to be roundly robust, ruthlessly courageous and unhinged from the manacles of government censorship, journalism has become even more partisan than the politics it is meant to report. Welcome to partisan journalism in the era of partisan politics. The typical Nigerian journalist of today has morphed into a partisan mode, driven by ethnic rotors; propelled by religious pulleys, his thoughts tainted by lucre and lust, his language fuelled by fibs and an overriding lusting to please a paymaster.
And you wonder, where is professionalism? Whatever happened to ethics and code of conduct for the chroniclers of history. Journalism has become a hype and the journalist a hype man. He who pays the piper calls the tune. Indeed, this is true. Ownership, ethnicity, religion, money and all its allure are the modern punctuation marks. They determine length of story, slant of news and placement of same. They determine what is news and what will never be news. They trim the sharp edges of news just so it fits into the mould of ethno-religious bigotry.
Publish and be damned? That’s old school journalism, my dear. New school journalism says publish as they pay, as the subject wishes. In some cases, the ethnic configuration of the subject determines the newsiness or otherwise of a matter. Ethnicity, religion and money are the trading currencies in the news marketplace. Not so much a Nigerian thing, but it’s worse here than anywhere you can imagine. Politics, partisan politics, with all its shadowy attributes has sucked modern journalism into its sleazy orbit. Whereas the journalist ought to audit the conduct of the partisan politician, it’s the politician who now audits the journalist, an emergent anomaly under the sun.
This should be indented as one of the perils of democracy, if not the biggest peril. The death of ethical journalism and the blooming of partisan, ethnicity-infused journalism in Nigeria. It’s the new elephant in the room that nobody talks about but everyone knows it’s there, alive and flourishing. Partisan journalism is the reason corruption continues to thrive in Nigeria and a section of the media relapses into silence. It’s the reason elections are rigged and the riggers and their agents suffer no rebuke because those who should rebuke them are of the same ethnic stock with the polls grifters.
The media is the manure of democracy. It is the oxygen of constitutional government. But when the media is partisan, it renders itself ineffectual and loses its licence to interrogate the processes of democracy and the rubrics of governance. Nigeria media needs to reinvent itself to keep effective sentry at the weakening gates of democracy.
