Time Magazine
April 2002
Journalism, Nigerian-style
BY STEPHAN FARIS | LAGOS
After a recent cnn report suggested that Nigerians would welcome a return to military rule, a furious Ministry of Information official called members of the foreign press to Abuja, the capital, for a lecture on honest and accurate reporting. Following the admonition, which included requests for less negative news, each reporter was presented with a pack containing government reference books. Nestled in the same bag was a brown envelope stuffed with about $400.
With the controversial presidential election in Zimbabwe over, the 2003 elections in Nigeria--home to nearly one in six Africans--will be the next big test of democracy on the continent. Jerry Gana, the Minister of Information, emphasized this point last month when he kicked off a seminar organized by the Nigerian journalists' union to address standards in the media by promising: "Other governments have been arresting journalists and closing down media houses. This government will not do so. We believe that the success of this nascent democracy is in your hands." But a truly free press must be liberated not only from government oppression, but from the temptations of cash-filled envelopes like those issued by Gana's office.
Bribery is just one of the challenges Nigeria's press faces as the country makes the difficult transition from dictatorship to democracy. With well over a dozen national dailies and several weekly news magazines struggling for shelf space, Nigeria's press is one of the liveliest on the continent. It's resilient, too. Journalists played a vital role in the country's struggle for independence in 1960. After self-rule was established, Nigeria's newspapers and radio stations flourished and gained a reputation as the best in Africa. Reason enough, perhaps, for a series of military rulers to try to crush the press over a period of nearly 30 years. Papers were shut. Reporters were beaten, imprisoned, shot and blown up.
Rather than buckle, though, the press went underground, writing in secret and printing at different plants every night. When civilian rule returned in 1999, Nigerian journalists breathed a sigh of relief. Suddenly they could work relatively unharassed. But with their activist role gone, they've struggled not only to find a new purpose but even to define what journalism is. Pini Jason, publisher of the Examiner, a national daily, believes the tradition of confrontation has hurt balanced and objective news reporting. Writers blend fact with opinion and pepper their reports with religiously or ethnically tinged speculation, fueling tensions in the country. "Most of the things published here are not publishable internationally," he says.
Nigerian journalists admit they could use more training. But breaking the cycle of bribery will take more than just a lecture on journalistic ethics. Cash-filled envelopes are routinely handed out by government officials, oil companies, banks and just about anyone else giving a press conference. "Virtually all journalists are given them," says Yinka Aderibigbe, who covers the Lagos state governor for the Guardian, the country's best-selling paper. A typical press conference yields up to $15, more than half of most reporters' weekly salary. Editors have money delivered to their offices. A single source--a state government, for instance--might give a senior editor $200 every few months to ensure favorable coverage.
Moreover, Nigeria's rulers have no experience of dealing with a free press. Government spokesmen often refuse interviews, and there is no freedom of information legislation to force official disclosure. To make matters worse, governors treat state television and radio as their mouthpieces. And harassment hasn't disappeared altogether. Independent journalists investigating corruption complain of intimidating anonymous phone calls.
The country's sporadic power supply and shoddy communications and transportation networks make publishing regularly a challenge. The Examiner's Jason, for instance, hasn't published his paper for more than a year. In those circumstances, journalists are in desperate need of an income. Plus, poverty and an underfunded education system produce not only poorly-trained journalists, but also fewer readers.
Still, there is some cause for hope. Christopher Meghai, a journalism teacher at the Times Journalism Institute in Lagos, left his reporting job to teach because he couldn't support himself without taking the brown envelopes. "I felt cheap," he says. "For how long will I have to survive that way?" How long? For as long as Nigeria's journalists rely on their story subjects as their paymasters.
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