On a Press Freedom Day, astute writer and hardworking news hunter, Emmanuel Obe, who goes by the tag “Street Journalist” in his social media column, wrote on his Facebook wall; “Every trade has an International Day to celebrate. Today is World Nurses Day. The other day it was World Teachers Day. When it was the turn of journalists, it became, Press Freedom Day. What’s our offence that they don’t want us to be free? The other day prisoners were freed. Hostages freed. Bandits freed and paid. Militants are freed and get a life pension called amnesty. Journalists; no freedom, no pension, no amnesty. No journalists’ day!”
Obe stated the minds of many journalists, especially those operating in Nigeria. It is an ageless struggle for freedom to report and comment without the journalist glancing at his back often to be sure the DSS, hired killers or other agents of government are not after him. Newsmen all over the world have for ages prided themselves as “the Fourth Estate of the Realm” and have continued to play the “watchdog” of the society. They, covertly or overtly, assume the responsibility of informing the masses on what goes on in all facets of the society. Students of journalism are taught that the press constitutes, perhaps, the unsolicited ombudsman of the society.
Equipped with this sense of purpose, the journalist, on graduation from college, comes into the field with zeal. He works tirelessly on the business of prying into and exposing other people’s businesses either to their discomfort or to their delight.
Daily, the journalist, playing the role of a social critic, uses the pages of the newspaper and the radio airwaves to report the day to day events not only as he sees them but also as he would want them seen by the people. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, he keeps surveillance over men and their activities, nosing, analyzing, castigating, praising or merely informing. By these processes, he seeks to influence the society, especially the policy makers, to positive ends.
As editors, the journalists fling the pages of newspapers open to the public for commentaries on a variety of issues. The television and radio houses throw their doors open to different shades of opinion. Thus, the press on the whole constitutes a marketplace of ideas. Is it any wonder that Thomas Jefferson, a notable American statesman and former president, once said that if he was to choose between a government without newspapers and newspapers without government, he would choose the latter. Of course, he knew that the two institutions are necessary and complementary.
In medieval Europe, the sword was the greatest instrument for the settlement of any argument. That was when might was right. It has been common today to hear people say that the pen is mightier than the sword.
It was not for nothing that this saying emanated from the Western World. There, the press holds sway. There, democracy means government of the people, for the people, and by the people. And the press has been accepted as almost indispensable in the promotion of democracy.
This attitude was largely carried down to Africa when all voices in the press, like a thousand spears on a villain, were directed against colonialism. The British yielded to public opinion and by 1960 independence had been granted to most nations of Africa, Nigeria inclusive.
The scenario, since the continent freed itself from the clutches of colonialism, has changed practically in nations of Africa. In Africa, Nigeria in particular, the “watchdog” is no longer what it ought to be. It has turned to a “dog watched”. It has been dispossessed of its position as the “Fourth estate of the realm” and boxed in a corner where it is best described as the “Fought estate of the realm”.
In Nigeria, for example newspaper houses are known to have been shut at the slightest indication of threat to the powers that be and journalists hounded. Free speech is stifled with draconian laws in broadcast codes and the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) hammer does not hesitate to descend on the television or radio house that is perceived to have gone contrary to the codes. Even in this age when information has been largely liberalized through the almost cost-free social media, the Establishment keeps awake, plotting ways to shut down freedom of expression.
Daily, a large dose of news, opinions, features and analyses on various issues are printed on the pages of our newspapers, discussed on air and commented on in the social media. The iniquities of electricity managers, managers of the nation’s finances and our umpires in the game of politics are reported, and solutions to their problems catalogued. Photographs of bad roads and cars wading through stagnant waters are published to the point that they no longer make news.
As the social critics, the watchdogs, the activists, the scholars, labour leaders, doyens, the elite and various other concerned citizens carve their beautiful architectural pieces of society on the newspapers and radio broadcasts, the ills they seek to correct go from bad to worse with tremendous intensity.
Of late, Nigeria without borders has found itself in a critical security situation such that people fear that the worst would happen, that the nation is sliding on the steep road to Rwanda and Liberia of the 1990s. All these are reported in the social and traditional media without effects. There is a cacophony of voices, many speaking apocalyptically while the Establishment carries on as if nothing is happening. Apparently, policy makers and their executors who thwart the policies according to their whims, and to which these criticisms are directed, read the reports and just laugh and assure themselves that “they may have their say while we have our way”.
Britain, the builder of this house of commotion, is not influenced by the various reports to do something to save the nation they once colonized. The press is unable to draw the big heads to the roundtable for a summit to save the nation.
Beyond Nigeria, the Press descended heavily on Donald Trump, both in the last election in the United States of America and the one that first brought Trump to the White House. They vividly showed how racist he was and the harm racism has done to America. Yet, the influence of the press had no adverse effects on the maverick who got elected once again to the White House last November 5, and is today the American president.
And so, the questions; where lies the might of the pen? Are the present-day happenings signifying a decline in the power and influence of the press worldwide? Will the pen remain perpetually crushed by tyranny hiding under the veil of democracy as it is manifesting in Nigeria? Is the power of that institution withering? What is the institution not doing right? What does the future hold for the Press? Seriously, it’s not looking well for the press.
Dr. Odu can be reached through dirimrich2018@gmail.com, or SMS 07016722929