Nigeria Content Online

In two days Nigeria
will celebrate fifty years of political independence from Great
Britain. There has been much criticism of the material cost of
celebration as wasteful and excessive. Many say there’s nothing to show
for the golden jubilee by way of a qualitative difference in the
people’s lives, contrary to the promise of independence. A good example
is Dr. Mohammed Salami, a retired permanent secretary, who, at last
week’s Akintola Williams lecture organised by the Nigeria-Britain
Association, urged Britain to withhold or vote against any aid due to
Nigeria because it would not be judiciously spent.

There are those who
say not only is there nothing positive to show, Nigeria, indeed, would
have been better off as a vassal state of Great Britain. One of them is
Dr. Niyi Adedeji, who not only called for continued Britain’s
supervision of Nigeria’s fiscal policies at the same lecture but also
volunteered to provide damaging information about our leaders.

On the other hand
are those who say there’s a lot to thank God for. Nigeria fought a
bitter civil war and has managed to remain one while struggling to
manage its diversity. Nigeria may be small in the eyes of some
Nigerians, but a journey through much of Africa will show that it is
good to be a Nigerian, even as we set our sights on higher grounds.
Nigerians of all ethnicity and religions are distinguishing themselves
in various walks of life. Nigeria may have suffered some reversal of
fortune but she possesses the capacity to be truly the giant of Africa
in many ways.

To be sure the story of Nigeria in the last fifty years is one of mixed blessings.

From the giddy
promise of independence to serve as a beacon of hope to people of
African descent, our leaders enjoyed the grandeur of office without the
matching discipline. Avarice disconnected them from the people, which
ultimately paved way for the military’s misguided foray into
governance. From the painful and destructive civil war to the post war
effort at rehabilitation, reconstruction, and reconciliation; from the
buoyancy of the oil sector and rapid infrastructure development, to the
profligate times when Nigeria’s problem was not how to make money but
spend it; from the days of sporting glory when indigenous effort
boosted the spirit of competition and sports men and women took pride
in representing their country, to the waywardness of sports stars that
prefer to monetise honour, the Nigerian media have been part of the
success and the failure.

The limited success
in building a nation out of many nation-states is as much a consequence
of failed leadership as it is the handiwork of a media more polarised
than professional. Historically, media organs in Nigeria tend to rely
heavily on politicians and public funds in their hegemonic contest for
supremacy. Media reporting is often no more than the extension of the
war of the stomach coloured by ethnicity and religion. Ideas are seldom
bad in themselves in our media without wearing a coloured toga,
especially when they touch on our political livelihood. If the country
has been unable to produce a quality professional group of leaders
because of an absence of consensus on the much needed requirements, the
same is true of the media.

As the media
pitched tents with political parties in the first republic, they
parroted their masters’ voices under military rule when the media were
predominantly state-owned and shamelessly went to bed with the highest
bidder in the second republic.

Today, there is a
discernible parochial pattern in the editorial positions of our media.
Many are not even bothering to reflect some balance in their reporting.
The focus is increasingly on the moment, not the hereafter. So, a major
broadcast network cedes its CEO to an aspirant for party candidacy and
every other candidate barely gets a mention.

When they do it is
with distorted visuals or audio sound. What will happen when the proper
inter party campaign commences? At a time the country should be
searching for quality people to find solutions to our stunted growth,
too much energy is being dissipated on the zonal origin of a candidate
and not the character and content of programmes.

If the new
experiment must succeed the media need to reduce the current hysteria
that dominates much of the reporting and focus more on tomorrow’s
progress that can only come from the lessons of the past. The fresh
effort at building democratic governance can turn round things for the
better if we rid our sights of myopia.

We note the ongoing
efforts of our new political umpires to succeed where others have
failed. We urge for more vigilance to ensure they are in tandem with
the national assignment. As the parties search for their candidates,
the media must challenge them to demonstrate clearer vision that they
can do things better than those they seek to replace.

The general public must show greater sensitivity to the issues that
define their existence by going beyond clichés and demanding relevant
programmes and greater commitment to service from the candidates.